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STUDIES IN 
PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 




<.. t . ^ 



STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY 
AND PSYCHOLOGY 

BY 
FORMER STUDENTS OF 

CHARLES EDWARD GARMAN 



IN COMMEMORATION OF T\YENTY-FIVE YEARS 

OF SERVICE AS TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY 

IN AMHERST COLLEGE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1906 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Received 

JUN 27 1906 

Oooyrighi Entn 



^righi Entry ^ 
JLASS 6t 'XXC. No. 



COPY B. 






EDITORS 

JAMES HAYDEN TUFTS 
EDMUND BURKE DELABARRE 
FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP 
ARTHUR HENRY PIERCE 
FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE 



COPYEIGHT 1906 BY JAMES H. TUFTS 
PUBLISHED JUNE, ]906 



CHARLES EDWARD GARMAN 

TEACHER AND FRIEND, THESE PAPERS ARE 

DEDICATED AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE 

GRATITUDE, ADMIRATION, AND 

AFFECTION OF HIS 

STUDENTS 



A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN 

The Editors think that the best preface to this com- 
memorative volume is to be found in the following letter 
from Professor Garman to President G. S. Hall of Clark 
University. It was written without thought of publication, 
but subsequently, with the author's consent, appeared in 
the American Journal of Psychology, volume ix, 1898. 
The Editors venture to reprint the letter without the 
knowledge of Professor Garman, believing that while his 
course has been changed in detail to give greater promi- 
nence to social problems, the essential principles remain 
the same. This course has been for a quarter of a century, 
not only to those who have continued their philosophical 
studies, but to all Amherst men who have taken it, the 
realization of Plato's conception of education, — the turn- 
ing of the mind to reality. 

In the light of what the letter discloses as to the pur- 
pose of Professor Garman's teaching, unity of doctrine 
will not be expected in the studies which are here pre- 
sented. Their common ground is one which their authors 
share with the Amherst men who have joined to make 
this volume possible — a unity of appreciation. 

Amherst, Mass. 
My dear President Hall, — The problems that you 
propose in your letter of February 8 interest me greatly, 
and I am very glad to have an opportunity to state to 
you my experience. It is a matter I have puzzled over 
much for the last eighteen years, and I am very far from 
feeling that the problem is solved yet. I have constantly 
altered my course and tried new experiments, but still the 



viii A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN 

undergraduate is an uncertain quantity, and methods 
which secure a phenomenal success with one class meet 
with much resistance from others. 

First, a word as to my methods of work. There seems 
to be an unavoidable resistance to new ideas on the part 
of students at this age, a resistance that during the last 
few years has increased. I have gradually settled down 
to the conviction that an introductory course ought to 
be so arranged as to meet this resistance most advanta- 
geously. This I have secured by two devices : first, the 
pamphlet system, which I think is as much of an inven- 
tion as printing by movable type. These pamphlets I 
have printed at my own expense ; they are very fragmen- 
tary, taking up a single topic or part of a topic and treat- 
ing it as one would in a lecture; these I loan to the 
students, and they return them for the use of the next 
class. In this way I can state a question without answer- 
ing it by having them turn over to the next chapter of 
the book and find the answer given there. If I find the 
question is really appreciated, the effort is a success ; if 
not, I must approach it from some other direction, by 
some other pamphlet which shall have enough new mate- 
rial to hold their thought and stimulate their inquiry, and 
yet at the same time focus their attention on the prob- 
lem they have failed to appreciate. In this way 1 can 
keep the class at work and keep them moving, prevent 
their being taken up with outside occupations and amuse- 
ments, and at the same time be reviewing more thor- 
oughly work they have partially done. It requires as 
much skill to keep a class together in the introductory 
course, to give enough work for the best students and not 
too much for the less able, as it does for the police to 
handle a large crowd at the time of a public celebration. 
I can do it with pamphlets, I cannot do it without. If I 



A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN ix 

read lectures before the class to any extent they become 
spectators, but by means of the pamphlets they get the 
lecture before coming into the class-room, and our time 
is spent in discussion. 

My second device is the order in which our subjects are 
taken up. Years ago when I taught geometry I found 
that the students would oftentimes make it a mere in- 
tellectual puzzle or mental gymnastics, but that by apply- 
ing some of the problems to questions in surveying, in 
astronomy, and physics, I could bring the men to realize 
that in studying geometry they were gaining citizenship 
in the universe, and they were at once led to interpret 
their lives as far as possible in terms of these propositions. 
In taking up philosophy I have attempted to do some- 
thing of that same kind of work ; I present the funda- 
mental positions from the point of view of the history of 
the discussions in psychology, in philosophy, and ethics, 
and to some extent of those in political obligations. It 
makes the matter as serious and personal as possible, and 
as a result it has often cost the students a very great effort 
to satisfy themselves instead of simply meeting the require- 
ments of the recitation-room. 

Now in answer to your particular questions I can only 
give very general impressions. 

" 1. Why is this (readjusting of their views) necessary, 
i, e, what is it meant to accomplish ? " — The earlier 
life of the students has been one of imitation and obedi- 
ence to authority; it corresponds to traditionalism in 
tribal or national existence. The great requisite for a 
young person is to form habits. I have sometimes been 
asked to give lectures to the lower classmen on methods 
of work, and I think it would be very proper to do so, 
but I have more and more realized that students acquire 
right methods of work not through explanation but 



X A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN 

through imitation and discipline. I have had students 
completely carried away by my lectures on methods of 
work in the fall term, and declare that " if they had only 
known that freshman year it would have made such a 
difference with them/' and yet in three months' time 
the entire effect had passed away, and they would do only 
what I forced them to do by actual drill. I am confident, 
therefore, that the earlier education of the student must be 
wholly by imitation, which should be more or less blind. 
But there comes a time when the young man must assume 
responsibility for what he does ; there must be self-posses- 
sion and self -direction instead of dependence on authority, 
and this is a new experience to him, an experience which 
many shrink from even in very little things. 

Those who decline to follow this unfolding of their 
nature, and there are very many of them, begin to fos- 
silize. If they are religious they soon become Pharisaical, 
get lost in particulars, are unable to discriminate the essen- 
tial from the accidental, and take refuge in doing some- 
thing, and their religious activity is oftentimes such as 
exhibits zeal, but without knowledge. If they are not reh- 
gious they become fastidious in imitating social customs, 
and very soon develop a degree of indifference toward 
everything except mere form ; they become heartless, 
selfish, many cynical. There is no hope for a young man 
at this time if he does not meet the obligations of life 
with the spirit of self-reliance, but to do this he must have 
some confidence in his own judgment and the standards 
by which he judges. This is the spirit of philosoph}^^ 

A young man w^ho does not have the spirit of philoso- 
phy grows up a woman minus her virtues ; he can never 
have the intuitive power of a woman, but he is sure to 
have her sensitiveness, her vanity, her fickleness, and gen- 
erally he will greatly exaggerate these qualities. 



A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN xi 

It is my conviction that a young man can obtain inspi- ' 
ration, enthusiasm, absence of self-consciousness only by 
the steady contemplation of great truths ; that if he is 
wholly absorbed in imitation he is like a person whose , 
whole work is that of a proofreader ; if he is successful, 1 
he is taken as a matter of course, and he gets no credit ; 
if he is unsuccessful and makes mistakes, he is awkward ; 
he is ridiculed beyond endurance ; he soon realizes that 
the most promising rewards for the most careful efforts 
are negative, and he soon becomes indifferent, and is 
simply goaded on from fear of the consequences of fail- 
ure. But the young man w^ho philosophizes, who really 
understands himself and appreciates the truth, is no longer 
a slave of form, but is filled with admiration that is genu- 
ine and lasting. 

This, I believe, is exactly the issue which is settled at 
this critical period of a young man's life. But the ques- 
tion arises, why should philosophy, psychology, and ethics 
be the studies which most favor self-reliance, rather than 
mathematics or the sciences? 

I have often raised the question as to whether T would 
not let down my course and take a httle rest and devote 
myself to publishing, but I have found that somehow stu- 
dents' minds would be satisfied with nothing less than 
these most difficult problems. I did not awaken enthusi- 
asm or gratitude until these were mastered, and so I have 
come to the conclusion that there is something in these 
subjects which the mind demands at this stage of the 
young man's development. 

It seems to me that mathematics fails to meet the 
demand for two reasons : first, there is no difference of 
opinion on all these subjects, and the student does not 
really have to stand on his own feet ; thus it may become 
more a discipHne in ingenuity than in decision and seK- 



xii A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN 

reliance. Secondly, he oftentimes knows pretty nearly 
what the answer will be, and therefore gets very decided 
hints as to the means ; that is, he really has some guid- 
ance either from text-books or from experience ; he is 
not a Columbus sailing over unknown seas with every- 
thing before him untried. 

With regard to the physical sciences, there is some 
difference of opinion here, but his main time is spent in 
undergraduate work on matters that are generally ac- 
cepted; he has more or less assistance about the use of 
the apparatus, and his main consciousness of need is of 
ingenuity and of quickness; and then the enormous ad- 
miration which our age has for the discoveries of physical 
science gives him almost a superstitious reverence for any- 
thing that can be called scientific. I mean by this that he 
accepts a great many positions in science without really 
testing them, and thus he almost gets back into the imi- 
tative work again ; but when he comes to philosophy it is 
a new world. The trend of public opinion, especially of 
society life, with which he is most familiar, is not in that 
direction; it requires something like the heroism which 
was demanded of Luther and of the anti-slavery leaders 
for him to attempt the positions which even in an under- 
graduate study are forced upon his attention, and he 
cannot follow authority, there is so much difference of 
opinion. He is obliged, therefore, to weigh evidence and 
to let himself down with all his weight upon his own feet. 
It takes me six months to bring even the better men in 
the class up to a place where they will really weigh evi- 
dence ; when their attention is called to it, the issue is 
forced and they are greatly surprised to find the extent 
to which they have blindly followed authority, — they are 
almost as frightened as some horses are when the blinders 
are taken off. But when the idea fairly dawns upon them 



A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN xiii 

that true scholarship consists, not in some mystical quality 
of genius which ordinary men do not possess, but in sim- 
ple honesty to one's self in following out the Cartesian 
Golden Rule, then they experience a new birth, they are 
no longer boys or slaves, but men. If they attain citizen- 
ship in the kingdom of truth, they perceive that the dif- 
ference between the greatest and the smallest consists 
only in the quickness and comprehensiveness and thorough- 
ness and humility of their work. Truth to one man is 
truth to all if they can get exactly the same data and 
exactly the same standards. Henceforth they call no man 
master or lord, for all are brethren. 

No doubt a similar development could be secured, if 
we could only have the right circumstances, by business 
responsibility, or by military service, or by actual profes- 
sional practice and training, but I think it would be pretty 
costly, and that the usual percentage of failures would be 
maintained. Philosophy has this advantage, that it gives 
the training under such circumstances that the best re- 
sults can be secured with the least danger. 

" 2. How should it be guided, directed, or controlled 
by the instructor, i. e. what topics first and last, should 
it be deep going or drastic ? are there dangers, and if so, 
how avoided ? " — The first requisite is success. Power 
reveals itself only in work done ; if the student gets con- 
fused and discouraged he is worse off than if he had not 
attempted to decide for himself. 

It is my conviction that the introductory course should 
always be given by a teacher of the largest experience 
and greatest power of adaptation. I feel that when the 
student has learned to stand on his own feet and to weigh 
evidence thoroughly, and to avoid jumping at conclusions 
because they appear plausible, he can be left to the guid- 
ance of the less experienced teacher, but that first ac- 



xiv A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GAR^IAN 

qiiaintance with philosopliy is the grand opportunity, just 
like the breaking of a colt ; carelessness here will vaccinate 
ao'ainst future success. 

The student needs to be taught first constructive think- 
ing. He has been accustomed to a certain amount of 
analysis ; all this, with rare exceptions, is clerical work. 
He will make a very good table of contents or the out- 
line of a certain argument, but he takes the author's own 
estimate of each step of his position, and has no power 
to understand independent valuation. The first thing is 
to teach him that scholarship demands constructive criti- 
cism, and here we must begin with the easier subjects. In 
my own experience hypnotism is peculiarly favorable for 
this kind of work. I give them several recitations on the 
details of hypnotism up through double consciousness in 
Binet, etc., then I ask them to give me, not an outline, or 
table of contents, but such an argument as a judge would 
give when reviewing the case before a jury, telHng them 
not to go into details, and not to jump at conclusions, and 
to give the extremes under each type. The papers I get 
back are a sio^ht to behold. These I criticise, writino^ in 
corrections with red ink, and hand back, and then require 
them to try again. By this time they discover their mis- 
take, but do not see how to remedy it, and then comes a 
great deal of very frank talk. Then they realize for the 
first time how much they are guided by authority and 
imitation and indeed begin to wonder if there is anything 
else in scholarship. Then I give them in very brief form 
my own argument, and then follows a most interesting 
series of comments which generally agree in this particu- 
lar, " How could we be expected to have discovered any- 
thing like that in the reference-books?" and it very soon 
becomes formulated into the idea that the standards for 
undero'raduate thinkino; ouo^ht not to be the same as that 



A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN xv 

which is demanded of the teacher. In other words, there 
is a difference of kind between the teacher and the taught. 

I heheve the great secret is to take some one subject 
and make a success of that rather than to go from subject 
to subject. Hence, I work over this particular problem 
until the men come to see clearly that it is simply an un- 
folding process, and that they could have worked it out 
if they had only weighed evidence. We then take up a 
series of subjects in psychology, and show their ethical 
and practical significance, and also the places which they 
have occupied in historical discussion. Each subject has 
a twofold significance. First, it is not so difficult but that 
the students can in time realize just what constructive work 
here means. Secondly, each subject points in a particular 
direction ; namely, towards the unity of our mental life, 
the fact that our practical activity is founded on our men- 
tal constitution ; and the students are brought to realize 
that simple things are more complex than they seem, and 
therefore more thorough study will be demanded, purely 
from practical considerations, if one has no higher motive. 
I feel that the work should be thorough or not touched 
at all. Some subjects may be merely referred to, but it 
is better to take one subject and do it thoroughly, and 
show the students what it involves, and the true methods, 
than to give the results of investigation without giving 
the processes. 

Just here I have to fight strenuously against the stu- 
dents using the class-room as a pony ; when a problem 
is given out and the data presented in the class-room, they 
must attempt a solution for themselves, and not wait and 
get the results presented in the class-room. Hence, I re- 
quire frequent papers written on topics by the whole class 
before the discussion is completed in the recitation. By 
means of the pamphlets I am able to do this, but if the 



xvi A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN 

pamphlets were bound up in a volume the students would 
look over into the next chapter and save themselves 
trouble. The dangers that are most serious, in my judg- 
ment, are demoralization and discouragement, such as may 
come over an army in a panic. Students are very quick to 
suspect a sleight-at-hand performance on the part of the 
teacher, and that some other author could get just the 
opposite results, and instead of weighing evidence they 
fall back on ingenuity and sophistry. I believe every 
student has to go through a period of sophistry if he 
fairly faces this work, and I believe in having this fit of 
measles early and having it out of the way ; but for some 
little time the teacher has got to be on the lookout for 
the sequelae, and he must not trust too implicitly to stu- 
dents when they say they are through with them. They 
are quite likely to enjoy the position of uncertainty, and 
use it to justify themselves if they have any immoral ten- 
dencies. But if you can get the man so far along as to 
make him have confidence in the power of weighing evi- 
dence, to realize how much civilization owes to it, how 
every department of life can be progressive only through 
scientific thinking, and then make it a moral question, 
and show that intellectual honesty and supreme choice of 
truth for truth's sake, and determination to follow evidence 
to the best of one's ability, is the great line of cleavage 
between the saints and the sinners, — if you can force the 
issue here and win, then the class are entirely different 
afterwards. I do not believe without this moral battle, 
without considering the ethical phases of the question, it 
would be possible to get the best intellectual results. 

3. " What would be one or two good literary treat- 
ments of this question of epistemology ; i, e. is a course 
in Locke, Berkeley, and Hume the best to begin with, 
and is Kant a final solution ? " 



A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN xvii 

Having taken them through a discussion of some of 
the simpler questions in psychology, our work centres 
around the doctrine of association and habit as it is pre- 
sented by James, and the men are made to realize how 
much of our life has a physical basis, especially by the 
study of pathological cases. We now face the problem, 
Is it all dependent on brain action ? If so, what would be 
the consequences? Up to this point they have had the 
point of view of physics and the natural sciences. Episte- 
mological work is fairly before us when we take up Berke- 
ley. I should prefer Berkeley and the Sophists taken up 
together. The great thing is to force upon a young man's 
mind a problem in all its seriousness. I do not feel that 
Locke is an economy of time for an introductory course 
unless some of the men hold to innate ideas. Therefore 
we begin with Berkeley, then take Hume with John Stuart 
Mill's additions, then selections from Spencer until we 
get before the student the problem of our standards of 
thought, whether these might not be wholly relative or 
due to association, and show what would be the effect on 
ethics and religion. Then we take up the study of reflex 
action, the automaton theory, and psychological problems. 
This brings the matter home to the students, till it seems 
as though physical habit (heredity and associations of 
ideas) would account for our most sacred convictions. 
The reason why I make this so strong is because at pre- 
sent there are very many outside enterprises distracting 
the students' attention. Unless philosophy is a life-and- 
death matter you will not get the thorough work, the 
hard work, which the students really need to do. They 
soon get a faith in the teacher, and think that a man who 
is able to present so clearly the argument on a few points 
which they have had will be able to guide them on all 
the difficult ones, and that somehow they will come out 



xviii A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN 

right anyway. So when they get into the larger questions 
and do not see the bearing of some of the problems, they 
are in danger of making drudgery out of it instead of 
philosophy, and so lose their inspiration. 

Our next step is to bring before them the questions, 
Can the brain weigh evidence? Can the brain give us 
personal identity ? Can the brain give us memory in the 
true sense of the word ? Can we account for the exist- 
ence of error if we have only brain action ? Here we take 
up such discussions as are given in Clifford and James's 
" mind stuff," and review Herbert Spencer until the men 
clearly realize the position which Wundt brings out, that 
there must be such a thing as psychical causality. This 
comes to them like a revelation. We are then ready for 
Kant and at the same time for the study of particular 
questions in physiological psychology. Then the men see 
what the fusion of sense perceptions means, also what 
problems are at issue in space perception, for instance, 
or in time perceptions, and most of all in attention and 
volition. It does not seem to me that the main problems 
of experimental psychology should come at the beginning 
of the course ; they surely get a double meaning when 
taken up at this stage. 

4. " Is it possible to find the way out of agnosticism 
or could an ingenuous soul be left to wrestle with it V^ 

My feeling is if the best students have the right method 
of work and have the spirit of investigation, agnosticism 
would in time work itself out if left unsolved, but that 
the average student needs help, at least to this extent, to 
show him that he cannot make any hypothesis which will 
be a reasonable basis for his knowledge of the physical 
world and of natural science that does not involve as its 
basis something more than the physical world. I believe 
the place to take this up is with Kant's " Practical Reason^" 



A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN xix 

and if this is fully appreciated the students will find no 
great difficulty in theism, at least as the only hypothesis 
which gives any basis for science and human life. It is so 
easy for them to feel that our knowledge of the material 
world is simple, and our knowledge of moral obligation 
and of spiritual life a mere matter of opinion that I can- 
not content myself with leaving the class until they re- 
alize just the reverse. It is not very hard to make the 
students understand that our standards of thinking are 
spiritual, and that unless we can use these standards in 
judging others, and in interpreting nature, and in inter- 
preting human life and human destiny we are guilty of the 
worst form of anthropomorphism, an anthropomorphism 
for which there is not the slightest justification. But with 
the application of these standards moral obligations are 
authoritative and society cannot dispense with them. The 
class derive great inspiration from this point of view. It 
converts them from disciples to apostles, and it helps them 
in every position of graduate work, in law, in literature, 
in theology, and in medicine. The business world is the 
severest trial, and yet nowhere do they need this point of 
view so much as when they are tempted to sacrifice every- 
thing to mere accumulation of wealth. 

The great need of our students from a practical point 
of view is an ideal ; the great danger is that they will be- 
come visionary. Hence I cannot let them go until I hold 
out before them the ideals of a spiritual life, and then 
make such a practical application as will enable them to 
understand the evolution of religion, that is, how it was 
possible for a divine being to tolerate slavery, polygamy, 
etc., provided these are wrong. I show them that an 
ideal is like the north star which the colored slave would 
follow, not with the expectation of ever reaching the 
star, but under the hope that by following it he might 



XX A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN 

better his condition. I bring in the laws of the unfold- 
ing of the life of the individual and of the community, 
until the men discover that the great question of human 
history is not so much " where we are as whither we are 
drifting/' and that time is required for all progress. 
Without this discussion the men would at first be ideal- 
ists and visionary and then get discouraged and wonder 
whether their college course had not been too optimistic, 
and whether finite human beings are not powerless to 
hasten the evolution of the race. This will lead to hope 
and lessen their indifference as citizens. 

I fear that I have wearied you by my long letter. I 
do feel that the teaching of philosophy is an opportunity 
which no other study offers. I feel that the student who 
has been through these doubts and worked them out for 
himself has learned the strength and at the same time 
the limitations of the finite, and that he will have a de- 
gree of courage and patience in adversity, a degree of 
self-reliance and humility which others can secure only 
by those peculiar experiences which occasionally occur in 
actual business or politics or the professional life. The 
student who has taken philosophy realizes how the part 
is to be estimated in the light of the whole, he realizes 
this more completely than he could from any other studj. 
He also realizes the dignity which a part may secure from 
the grandeur of the whole to which it belongs, and the 
little things in life have a depth of meaning for him 
which they could not have if he had not this point of 
view. There are considerably many who, in spite of all 
the teacher can do, use the class-room as a pony, who 
therefore get only some of the benefits of the course, 
but it shows in all their other work. The habits that are 
formed in college are so persistent that the student does 
not readily change them after he goes out. 



A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GARMAN xxi 

Hoping that I have not tired you by my long account, 
and that I have not given too much emphasis to the per- 
sonal equation, I am 

Most sincerely yours, 

Charles E. Garman. 



CONTENTS 



STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY 

I. On Moral Evolution 3 

James Hayden Tufts, '84, Professor of Philosophy in the Uni- 
versity of Chicago 
II. The Expansion of Europe in its Influence upon Popula- 
tion 41 

Walter Francis Willcox, '84, Professor of Political Economy 
and Statistics in Cornell University; sometime Instructor in 
Logic in Cornell University 

III. Democracy a New Unfolding of Human Power 71 

Robert Archey Woods, '86, Head of the South End House, Bos- 
ton 

IV. An Analysis of the Moral Judgment ........ 101 

Frank Chapman Sharp, '87, Professor of Philosophy in the Univer- 
sity of Wisconsin 

V. The Problem of Consciousness 137 

Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, '89, Professor of Philosophy in 
Columbia University 
VI. The Intellectual Element in Music ...... .167 

Edwin Lee Norton, '93, Instructor in Philosophy in Western 
Reserve University 

VII. Pragmatism and Kantianism 203 

William Longstreth Raub, '93, Professor of Philosophy in Knox 
College 
Vni. The Influence of Pragmatism upon the Status of Theo- 
logy 219 

Eugene William Ljinan, '94, Professor of Christian Theology in 
Bangor Theological Seminary; sometime Professor of Phi- 
losophy in Carleton College 



xxiv CONTENTS 

STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY 

IX. Influence of Sueeounding Objects on the Appaeent Di- 

EECTION OF A LiNE 239 

Edmund Burke Delabarre, '86, Professor of Psychology in Brown 
University 

X. Beginning a Language ; a Conteibution to the Psychology 

OF Learning 297 

Edgar James Swift, '86, Professor of Psychology and Pedagogy 
in Washington University 

XI. An Appeal feom the Peevailing Docteine of a Detached 

Subconsciousness 315 

Arthur Henry Pierce, '88, Professor of Psychology in Smith Col- 
lege 

Xn. The Cause of a Voluntaey Movement 351 

Robert Sessions Woodworth, '91, Adjunct Professor of Psycho- 
logy in Columbia University 
Xni. An Expeeimental Test of the Classical Theoey of Voli- 
tion 393 

Charles Theodore Burnett, '95, Instructor in Psychology in 
Bowdoin College 



STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY 



ON MOKAL EVOLUTION 

James Hayden Tufts 

I. INTRODUCTORY 

The advances in general and genetic psychology on the 
one hand, and in social psychology on the other, give the 
point of view for attempting an outline of the develop- 
ment of the moral self. The more important results from 
these disciplines, as regards the explanation of the moral 
life, are the following : — 

1. The conception of mental development as a process 
that starts with certain instincts and impulses which have 
biological explanations. The rise to active, intelligent 
personality takes place largely on occasion of reactions 
with environment, in which the simple discharge of im- 
pulse is blocked, and the longer way of thinking and plan- 
ning is forced if the being or the race is to survive. Grad- 
ually ideas, which at the outset were evoked by impulse 
and environment, assert more power, until they create in 
large measure the environment, and remake the impulses. 

2. The recognition that the self is many as well as one. 
It is many before it is one. It is long before its acts are 
connected by habit and memory into one morally respon- 
sible agent; it is longer before its many interests and 
impulses — egoistic and generous — are all brought into 
one spiritual unity. 

3. The conception of the self as always a socius. As 
the coming to consciousness of the self implies a world to 



4 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND* PSYCHOLOGY 

struggle with, so it also implies other persons, other selves. 
As in law the conception of a person implies the idea of 
rights, and rights imply a relation to other persons, so an 
ego cannot exist in a vacuum. He can say " my " only as 
over against a " your," and " I " only as he contrasts or 
implies a "you" or a "they." Man is always a member of 
some social group. The primitive man, the little child, is 
relatively not detached from his group as an independ- 
ent individual. Only gradually does the individual con- 
ceive and organize his own separate interests. Unconscious 
solidarity is the status at the outset; conscious individ- 
uality and conscious social interests are the final outcome. 

To these three concepts — of the mental life as a growth 
from impulse, of the complexity of content, and of the 
social character of the self — we may add one general 
principle of method. It must be kept in mind that what 
is true of mental process in general is preeminently im- 
portant in the moral life : the process of development 
and growth is always synthetic in the sense that a given 
stage is never simply the sum of past factors and agen- 
cies. The conception of the self as moral involves the 
constant process of a dynamic unfolding and reconstruct- 
ing agency, which pushes on to higher levels and judges 
or evaluates the past. 

After a brief preliminary statement of (1) the chief fac- 
tors in the developed moral self — the goal of the process, 
and (2) the genetic elements which are postulated as the 
beginning of the process, I shall discuss under II the 
causal agencies in moral evolution, and under III outline 
certain important phases of the process. 

1. The Chief Factors in the Moral Self 
When we speak of a moral man we imply, broadly, both 
that he has character and that he has a certain kind of 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 5 

character. Moralists distinguish the same aspect as a form 
and a content. Aristotle speaks of a " how " and a " what." ^ 
Broadly speaking, this has its basis in the twofold aspect 
of mental life. On the one hand it is a process of sub-^ 
jective control, purpose, feeling, and habit. On the other, 
it is an adjustment to an environment physical and social, 
a mastery of environment, a development of capacity by 
the actual struggle with objective conditions, and by the 
actual performance of function in a social organism. 
Psychologically the phrases attitude and content bring 
out much the same. 

On the side of the "how" the important aspects are: 

(a) The setting up and recognition of some standard, 
which may arise either as a control in the guise of "right " 
and "law," or as measure of value in the form of an 
ideal to be followed or a good to be approved. 

(b) Purity and sincerity of motive, whole-hearted inter- 
est in the end. 

(c) Organization of impulse and ideals into responsible 
character. 

On the side of the " what," there are two aspects : 

(a) The development and refinement or idealization of 
powers, giving advance in knowledge, in art, and in the 
consciousness of rights. 

(b) Regard for others under its various aspects of jus- 
tice, sympathy, and benevolence. 

2. The Genetic Elements 
What we postulate as the elements of the moral process 
will evidently depend somewhat on where we assume the 
process to begin. It is in some sense arbitrary where we 
make our first cross-section ; for it is evident that any con- 
scious control of action is in the line of preparation, at 

^ Ethics, bk. ii, ch. 4, § 3. 



6 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

least, for moral action. Nevertheless, on the psychological 
side, we have a natural starting-point in the instincts. 
The instincts, accompanied in some cases by emotions, 
are of biological ancestry. They are selected in the strug- 
gle for existence because they are modes of action favor- 
able to the organism or to the species or the group. 
They are not themselves psychical products. They form 
the beginnings, and later, rationalized and idealized, they 
remain the driving forces of the process. It is from the 
instincts making for the advantage of the individual that 
the seK of material interests, of personal ambitions, of 
assertive rights, is gradually organized. It is from the 
instincts selected by the welfare of the group that the self 
of justice, sympathy, and love is brought to conscious life. 
IntelHgence brings wider range of experience to bear upon 
the present ; in feeling the self values its experience, and 
thus may find new motives to action ; but as it is will which 
forms the centre of interest for morality, so it is the in- 
stinctive, impulsive tendencies which form the point of 
departure. 

On the objective side we take for our starting-point 
man in group life. We find him here engaged in the vari- 
ous occupations — seeking food and shelter, making tools, 
fighting, wooing, caring for children, defending his group, 
seeking companionship and help, seen and unseen — 
which correspond to the various instincts. Here are pre- 
sent for the first time all the elements which give the 
possibility of full moral development. 

11. CAUSAL AGENCIES IN MORAL EVOLUTION 

The moral consciousness and character of a man or a 

generation may be attributed broadly to three sources : 

(1) Nature, or physical constitution; (2) Society or social 

heredity ; (3) Original achievement, or the formation of 



ON MOEAL EVOLUTION 7 

character in dealing with the problems and situations of 
physical and social environment. 

(1) Under " nature " we may distinguish the conserva- 
tive factor of heredity^ which would tend to continue the 
race at about the same level, and the factors making for 
progress. Progress through biological agencies is probably 
limited to what James calls the "back-door method" — 
accidental variation, although a given variation may be 
preserved by either natural or social selection ; the wise 
may be both better able to cope with nature and also 
given special care by his group. 

Acquired morality is probably not transmitted by phys- 
ical heredity. It can only give the physical factors a better 
chance, by supplying conditions favorable for the emer- 
gence and preservation of desirable variations in offspring, 
or in general for the young of the group. 

But acquired morality may be and is transmitted by 
(2) social heredity, by which w^e mean the transmission 
from generation to generation of certain standards, ideals, 
and implications of authority embodied in tradition, cus- 
tom, language, and institutions. The new generation or 
individual learns these in a way sufficiently distinct from 
the independent formation of standards and character to 
make a distinct treatment desirable. 

(3) Deliberate, conscious choice and action is undoubt- 
edly the basis of full moral consciousness and character. 
Nevertheless it is relatively a small factor in the early 
stages of moral evolution, and in the development of the 
child up to the adolescent period. 

When we ask how much moral progress is due to each of 
the three agencies named, we are largely in the air. No one 
doubts that reaction to a peculiar condition in politics and 
society develops a Socrates or a Lincoln ; that a religious 
conflict gives deeper meaning to the moral life of a Paul ; 



8 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

that abuses rouse a Voltaire or a Bentham to criticism and 
reform. But no one can tell just how much was due to 
their physical heredity. Why did the situations provoke 
them to action and not others ? Was it because of birth 
or of training ? In the case of a man who opposes current 
ideals it might seem that it could not be training. But 
even here a conscientious attitude may be cultivated which 
may later turn upon the contents of its teachers' morality. 

Again, is there any real advance which so registers 
itself in the physical organism as to be hereditary ? No 
doubt the modern European or American child has greater 
capacities than the pithecanthropos, but it would be bold 
to affirm that the infant of to-day is notably superior in 
moral traits and capacities to the infant of our ancestors 
of two thousand years ago, or that the Jew of the Chris- 
tian era was naturally superior to the Jew of the day of 
Nathan the prophet. It is seemingly impossible to devise 
any accurate way of measuring an assumed advance in 
the hereditary basis. The test cannot be applied to the 
child at birth, or even in early childhood, for several of 
the instincts and factors in the moral self cannot be 
looked for until at least the adolescent period. But by 
this time the second and third agencies — society and the 
child's own reflective action in the presence of problems — 
have been at work, and it is impossible to separate their 
respective contributions. 

But while individual tests may be difficult or impossible, 
we may attempt some general inferences as to the opera- 
tion of 7iatural and social selection upon variations. We 
undoubtedly have certain individuals varying in the line 
of greater intellectual activity, stronger instinct for mas- 
tery and gain, greater sensitiveness to ideal beauty, greater 
parental or social sympathy. It is obvious that natural 
selection will favor certain of these variations, which help 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 9 

the individual in the struggle for existence ; that the 
struggle between groups will likewise favor those groups 
with social instincts^ whose mutual aid makes them strong. 
Social selection will reinforce natural selection in many 
cases. It might seem then that the cosmic process is in the 
service of the moral. But a serious obstacle to progress 
along this line presents itself in the apparent collision 
between the two sets of instincts. Idealization and indi- 
viduality seem fatal, if not to parental affection, at least 
to that regardlessness in the exercise of sex and parental 
instinct which results in a large number of offspring. If 
not an absolute " race-suicide," there is undoubtedly a 
relative failure to increase among individuals intellectu- 
ally, artistically, or economically exceptional. 

Is it true that moral progress is handicapped by breed- 
ing from the " lower" strata? Perhaps the case is not so 
bad as it appears. The kind of ability which results in 
economic success is often connected with a certain hard- 
ness of temper. Even intellectual acuteness may mean 
an abstraction from family or political interests which is 
useful for science, but on a large scale would be injurious 
to public welfare. If the well-to-do and the intellectual 
are too selfish or too abstract in interest or too anaemic 
to want children, it is better for the race that they should 
not have them. Individuality and ideality are desirable, 
but to propagate them at the expense of the parental and 
social instincts would be to pay too high a price. The 
greatest single factor — not by any means the only factor, 
as Sutherland would make it ^ — in the development of 
the social and emotional aspects of morality is the natural 
selection of stocks which show increasing care for off- 
spring. The statistics show impressively that the birth- 
rate in the animal world is of almost trivial importance in 

1 The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct. 



10 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

comparison with the elements of intelligence and care.^ 
Professor Willcox's paper in this volume shows analogous 
results for human increase. But when it comes to a choice 
between the individualizing and refining process, on the 
one hand, and the sex, parental, and social instincts on 
the other, nature will not hesitate. And in the interests 
of moral progress is not nature's choice the wise one? Is 
it not easier — if the alternative is thus set — for society 
by its agencies to cultivate the individual's development 
mentally than to cultivate the generous and sympathetic 
disposition ? 

It would seem, then, that as regards the factor of natu- 
ral selection, we can trust nature to keep up the level of 
strength in the sex and parental, and perhaps also in the 
sympathetic instincts, and to maintain so much of the in- 
tellectual progress and self-assertion as does not interfere 
with these. 

The significance and method of the social agency need 
further analysis. How does society communicate its moral 
content to successive generations, or to put it from the 
standpoint of the learner, how does a generation or a child 
assimilate the culture and morality of society ? He learns 
both consciously and unconsciously. 

Moral content, the "what," is taught by society with 
full consciousness. So far as this is an idea or intellectual 
material it can be and is taught like other information. 
Just because the "how," or moral attitude, is not informa- 
tion or knowledge, but a habit, a valuing, a disposition, 
the problem is more difficult. So far as the attitude con- 
sists in the careful weighing and measuring of seeming 
standards and values, i. e. in so far as all virtue can be 
reduced to wisdom, Plato faced the issue squarely. For 

^ Given in Sutherland, vol. i. 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 11 

this there must be not only the emotional culture of the 
sentiments through music, art, and literature, but also a 
training in analysis and reasoning. These are to give the 
reason skill as an instrument, and power as a mental con- 
stituent, so that it may be able to assert its own needs as 
best and most satisfying. Here we are of course on the 
border line between education by society and education 
by self. 

But does society have any direct influence on the " moral 
sentiments " ? Does it help in making ideas of right into 
ideals for action? in giving authority to the right? in 
fostering sympathy, justice, and benevolence ? 

Three answers have been given, which need to be sup- 
plemented in certain details by a fourth. 

(1) The Association Theory of social influence. This 
may take two forms. 

(a) Direct association of values with words and ideas. 
Parents and society utter certain words of approval or 
condemnation with tones which carry pleasant or unplea- 
sant associations. The child may not have the slightest 
intellectual conception of "horrid," "nasty," "disgust- 
ing," "mean," "wicked," "good," "fine," but he senses a 
decided emotional value as these are pronounced by an 
earnest parent. Nor does the social influence stop with 
infancy. Society uses certain epithets, such as " vulgar," 
"heretic," "anarchist," in a purely emotional sense and 
exercises considerable pressure thereby. This sort of di- 
rect association is combined in Mandeville's theory with 
appeals to pride, but the essential character of it is the 
direct association of value with certain moral terms. 

(6) The association of pleasant or painful consequences 
with certain acts. This as developed by Bain and Spencer 
has been so often criticised that it need not be analyzed 
here. It is unquestionable that society and parents must 



12 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

sometimes use such associations to check the thoughtless 
or lawless, but the associations of this class, as of {a), will 
sooner or later seem artificial if they conflict with pow- 
erful interests. Duties based on them will appear mere 
" conventions." We therefore are forced to inquire whether 
society has any mode of teaching the intrinsic as versus 
the external obligation and respect for authority. 

(2) The Sympathy Theory, This has two applications. 
Plato holds that emotional influences in childhood, rhythm 
and harmony, Apollo and the Muses, begin the education 
of the young and teach them, without conscious purpose 
on their part, to find pleasure and pain in the right objects. 
There is no doubt of the importance of this in race heredity. 
The agencies of art, music, and literature have been widely 
and effectively used to inculcate values, and give power 
to ideals honored by the older generation. 

The second application is to the specific case of valuing 
the interests of others. Here belong all such institutions 
as family, clan, men's houses, clubs, in which a group acts 
directly on the individual's feelings, accustoming him to 
feel, not as an individual, but as a member of a group, 
and therefore as having common interests and common 
sentiments with others. Further, in judging as well as in 
valuing, he is on a sympathetic basis, using a common 
standard of honor. There is no question of the immense 
importance of this factor. But it does not seem to provide 
for the duty or " ought" aspect, and hence we have 

(3) The Imitation and Polar-self Theory. This has 
been most fully developed by Baldwin. The valuation of 
action from a social standpoint is based on the social 
nature of the self ; but as contrasted with the previous 
view, this social nature is given a basis on the knowing 
side of our nature, rather than on the feeling side. The 
self, it is held, is formed largely by imitating the persons 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 13 

in its environment. The child copies father, mother, play- 
mate, and therefore is for the time being father, mother, 
playmate. It commands, threatens, sympathizes, feels as 
its models command, threaten, sympathize, or feel. It in 
turn practices these attitudes or selves on others, but it 
is always some socius, never an isolated self. It is also 
a different socius according as it is playing the role 
of learner in the presence of father, tyrant when with a 
younger child, or equal with a fellow playmate. Conse- 
quently its interests are as varied as its roles, and its 
standards of valuation as broad as its interests. 

This theory has an explanation also for the origin of 
the attitude of duty, the feeling of respect for authority. 
The child as learner is made conscious of his limitations ; 
he feels that he cannot copy all of his father or teacher 
or ideal person. He recognizes superiority ; yet as the 
superior person is not exclusively an outsider, but is 
rather, as socius, a part of himself in the largest sense of 
the term self, the feeling is one of respect, not of fear. 
It prepares for full autonomy. Here, then, is an answer 
to the old question, "Can virtue be taught?" which 
would make the teaching of atSw?, as well as alcrxvvr), 
possible, though by example rather than by precept. 

How far is this a satisfactory account of the genesis of 
the social sentiments and of the sense of duty ? There is 
no doubt that it contributes an important factor — more 
important for the genesis of these sentiments in the child 
than for their evolution in the race. If we state it in 
terms of the dual nature of the self set forth above, the 
theory might run : Granted that the "ought" rests upon a 
tension between impulse and reason, or impulse and habit, 
or habit and reason, the child is at first largely impulse, 
and the two other aspects, viz. habit and reason, are repre- 
sented in his consciousness by parent or other superior 



14 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

person. The question that arises as to its adequacy in the 
case of the child springs from the fact that by it the 
sense of duty is derived largely from the cognitive pro- 
cess. The parent is wiser; yes, but if this were all, the 
moral conflict would be less passionate, and authority 
would less often win. The controlling agency needs rein- 
forcement by all the impulses and emotions which appear 
on the instinctive basis, or which can be kindled on the 
sympathetic basis, and needs beside the reinforcement of 
direct appeal to such impulses as that of receiving public 
approval, to make it fully effective. And this explains 
why it is relatively less important in the race evolution. 
The social-self idea is fundamental. The cognitive aspect 
of it, the element of mystery in the presence of the un- 
known, is also present in race evolution, particularly in 
religious cultus or initiatory ceremonial. But the process 
of learning is here less a process of imitation, more a pro- 
cess of direct appeal to impulses, or of pressure by the 
social, as organized in customs and institutions, upon the 
private self. 

On the other hand, it has been questioned whether the 
imitation theory has any application to the social process. 
The accounts given by Spencer and Gillen of the delibera- 
tions of the old men upon the question of changing or 
adopting a custom would certainly tend to minimize the 
influence of this method of social heredity, and to give a 
much larger share to the moralizing agency of conscious 
choice. The really important role of imitation as com- 
pared with conscious volition in the case of adults and 
even of children would seem to lie less in the adoption 
of ends than in the adoption of technique. In the case of 
language, for example, it is an instinctive matter that the 
child begins to babble sounds; it is a volitional matter 
that the child comes to control gesture and sound to gain 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 15 

the ends he desires ; but it is a matter of social heredity 
through imitation that he uses the particular sounds and 
the particular syntax of English or Chinese. So in customs 
of moral significance : the mediaeval knight and the Jap- 
anese Samurai alike desire to maintain honor; the one 
challenges his insulter, the other commits harakiri. The 
passion is instinctive, the end is volitional, the method is 
imitative. Jewish and Greek ideahst both seek a better 
social order. For the Jew it is a kingdom of God, for the 
Greek a state controlled by wisdom. 

The three agencies noticed above do not provide for 
all the lines of social influence. Neither associations, nor 
contagious sympathy, nor presentation of "copies" as 
models for imitation, does justice to all the facts. We 
need to add 

(4) Social Organization as directing the discharge and 
organization of instincts and impulses. 

This may be stated both socially and psychologically. 
Socially it means that the child or primitive adult has 
various impulses, — to eat, to hunt, to attack, to satisfy the 
opposite sex, to company with others, to assert control. 
Society, however, by its very organization makes it neces- 
sary for the child to eat with others, to live with a family 
or clan, to hunt with a group, to satisfy sex impulse under 
certain limits, to company with certain men, to revenge 
himself only in certain ways. Or it gives definite scope 
for what would otherwise remain inchoate ; the institution 
of property develops the instinct to possess ; the rehgious 
cultus the instinctive reactions toward the unknown; the 
political or industrial organization the impulse to rivalry 
and mastery ; the festival the impulse to rhythmic expres- 
sion. So far as the social side of the case is concerned, I 
regard this as the most important of the agencies for 
control and for development. 



16 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

What of the psychological side? How does the indi- 
vidual react to this organization? Is it not by one of the 
three processes already noted, viz. association, sympathy, 
or imitation ? He learns something by each ; but in this 
ease he learns also (a) by suggestion and (b) by inde- 
pendent observation and adoption. In suggestive learning 
the individual neither intentionally copies, nor uncon- 
sciously plays the role of another. He is himself all the 
time, but he adopts such ideas, habits, or methods as he 
likes. In (6), independent vohtion, we are already in the 
field of the third agency of moral growth. But while it 
is psychologically not a single process, this fourth agency 
is socially distinct, and as such deserves explicit em- 
phasis. 

A brief notice will suffice for the factors in the third 
agency, viz. the indUiduaV s oicn volition. 

The first and chief factor in this process, stated objec- 
tively, is ojjjjosition in the physical and social environ- 
ment ; stated subjectively, effort} 

Opposition of the physical environment, including the 
'difficulties of erect stature, prevents immediate gratifica- 
tion of impulse ; it thus occasions the comparison of goods, 
the process of valuing ; it throws the individual back upon 
himself, and provokes reflection ; it heightens emotional 
tension, and through the process of the work necessary to 
gain the end, organizes character. For as will be pointed 
out in more detail later, the very nature of work, at first 
as effort, provoked by immediate necessities and impulses, 
and later as ehcited and diverted by a remoter end set up 
by thought, is that it implies and strengthens the capacity 
to take an interest, to control impulse by idea, and to con- 

1 Cf. Mezes, The Essentials of Human Faculty, University of California 
Publications, Philosophy, I. 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 17 

nect a series of acts into a continuous wholcj the counter- 
part of a continuous self. 

The fact of physical opposition or resistance to the wants 
is, further, the objective occasion for social cooperation 
and mutual aid. That man cannot supply his own wants 
forces him to seek the cooperation of others. But mutual 
service, or service for a common end, is the most effective 
positive agency for promoting social will, as distinct from 
social sympathy. To make the ends of others one's own, 
even from motives of physical necessity, is the most valu- 
able method of preparing the way for a social will of a 
completely voluntary sort. 

Finally, the opposition of interests which arises between 
individuals because of mutually exclusive ends, forces 
conscious choice between selfish and generous conduct. 

Next in importance to opposition is an en^dronment, — 
a muscular system, wood, clay, stone, metal, fibre, air as 
a medium for sound, — in which purpose and skill may find 
objective embodiment. Psychologically stated, ideal voli- 
tions must be actuaHzed and carried out if thoug^ht is to 
grow and character to form. Constructive production in 
all the crafts and fine arts has given power and perma- 
nence to the mental, and in so far to the moral life. The 
consciousness of personality, of agency, may owe its rudi- 
ments to the processes of imitation of other personalities, 
or to suggestion from them. Its deepest root, however, 
is probably this successful producing of objective results. 
The self as a creator or maker is a real self. 

Nor is the influence of this active construction and ex- 
pression limited to the formal sides of character. The 
reflex effect upon the artist or workman himself of han- 
dHng color and sound, of producing form ^nd rhythm, the 
social effect of presenting to others ideas and stirring their 
emotions, the refining and elevating influence of giving 



18 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AXD PSYCHOLOGY 

objective embodiment to the ideals of the most gifted, — 
all this belongs to the moral value of ^'manual training/' 
of music, of literature, and every art ! 



III. THE PROCESS OF MORAL EVOLUTION 

In this section we bring together the aspects and agen- 
cies which have been separated in the preceding analysis. 
We show the intimate interdependence of form and con- 
tent; the interaction of physical, social, and volitional 
agencies. 

The general law of progress on the formal side is : The 
rational, which in full morality is standard, law, and 
ideal, is at first presented, not by itself, but embodied in 
persons. Gradually it works free and comes to explicit 
recognition. Similarly character is organized at first by 
social pressure, later by self-directed work. 

On the content side the law is : Idealization of life is 
possible only through the processes of control and selec- 
tion just stated. Here too, therefore, the social embodi- 
ment of ideal ends is primary, the more definitely rational 
valuation of science and art is later. The other phases of 
content, viz. individuality and sociality, pass through the 
following process : Society begins with no sharp distinc- 
tion between self and others, with no definite rights, no 
personal duties, no positive freedom, no strictly personal 
responsibility. As rational standards are gradually set up 
and brought to bear upon the conflicting claims of indi- 
viduals, or upon the conflicts between individuals and the 
group, all these positive factors in individuality and social 
obligation assert their value and gain explicit recognition. 

Finally, as the result of this twofold development of 
form and content, the full moral consciousness is born. 
This has standard and motive and authority all within 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 19 

the self; and yet since the moral self is completely ra- 
tional, completely social, it has a standard and motive 
and authority which are universal. 

Starting with the instincts and impulses bred into the 
race, we notice first of all as a basis for the future com- 
plex consciousness that these impulses, quite apart from 
any other controlling influences, tend to check, modify, or 
reinforce each other. For example, the impulse to satisfy 
hunger is liable to be checked often by parental impulse, 
while the impulse to resent attack may be greatly re- 
inforced, as in the "bear" robbed of her whelps. Rivalry 
or emulation is immensely strengthened by sociability 
with its attendant love of praise. Sex impulse is pro- 
foundly modified by parental impulse, as the latter gains 
in force by the lengthening of infancy, keeping the 
parents together for a longer time, and tending to sup- 
plement the physical sex impulse by f eehngs of sympathy 
and common interest. The impulse toward appropriation, 
which later develops into desire of property, has also 
influenced the sex relation, and seems to have been an 
important agency in bringing about permanence and ex- 
clusiveness. The "neighbor's wife" is not to be coveted, 
"nor anything that is thy neighbor's." These illustra- 
tions show that even as endowed with these comj^eting 
instincts the individual is bound to develop a complex 
self, in which ideas of others play their part as truly as 
ideas of bodily or more exclusive and private interests. 

But in group hfe the self is not a complex of interests 
which borrow their strength solely from the physical con- 
stitution. The process of organization begins and goes 
forward, not with reference solely to a private, personal 
focus, but with reference to some group, or to the tension 
between some group interest and some private interest. 
The primitive man finds most of the technique of life — 



20 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

his occupatioiij his lodging, his costume, his fighting, his 
rehgion — all set for him. In all these he thinks and 
speaks less as ^^ I " than as " we.'* The Arabs never say, 
" The blood of M. or N. has been spilt," naming the man; 
they say, " Our blood has been spilt." Or, if as " I " in 
marriage, in food supply, it is often not "I" as a person 
with hopes and purposes, but I as a member of the wolf 
totem ; I as the mother of heroes ; I as head of the elan. 
The child in like manner begins to organize his interests 
not from a single, permanent, exclusive centre ; he is 
rather, as Baldwin has pointed out, now the learner, now 
the teacher, now the dependent, now the aggressive 
tyrant, because he not only works out his own instincts, 
but also on occasion plays the role of various personalities 
of his group. 

Neither in the case of man in group life nor in the 
case of the child is there complete individuality. But the 
cases are otherwise not identical. The child's lack of in- 
dividuality signifies rather an incomplete organization of 
interests ■ about any single centre; he plays many roles. 
This plurality is due, on the one hand, to the great variety 
of impulses pressing for expression, and on the other to 
imitation or suggestion, and on this second side is rela- 
tively more connected with the nature of the learning or 
cognitive process. The lack of individuality in primitive 
man is rather a positive solidarity of interest, a habit of 
working, feeling, and living as part of a group. This is 
due, not to the imitation or suggestion of other persons, 
but rather to the objective organization of his life. 

Two tensions are soon set up. (a) The group self is 
not all. Specific impulses — notably those for food, pos- 
session, emulation — provoke the individual either to 
separate his interests or to use the group instead of 
merely identifying himself with it. (6) At the same time 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 21 

there is another tension set up, — that between the simple, 
immediate satisfaction of impulse or desire and the more 
remote or complex good. Various factors may contribute 
to this : physically there is the appearance and selection 
of variations in the line of greater intelligence ; socially 
there is the machinery of exchange, and the premium 
placed on property or other product of forethought; in- 
dividually there is the satisfaction felt or anticipated in 
an expanding self. 

The distinction between these two tensions is not usu- 
ally felt. The control of the remote over the present is 
presented to the primitive man in group life as a control 
by the old men, by the customs which represent the ways 
of the forefathers, by the clan heads, the kindred gods 
— totem, ancestral, or covenant. Reverence for law is, 
at first, respect for personal representatives of the social 
order. It begins when the parent, who embodies superior 
power and knowledge, brings these to bear sympathetically 
upon the child's problems, or conduct, in such wise that 
the child sympathetically takes a similar attitude of con- 
trol. It develops as larger groups always are found to 
involve the same dual aspect, by which every member is 
both sovereign and subject. It is especially fostered by 
ceremonies of initiation and religious mystery. 

Spencer makes similar distinction of the two antitheses 
in moral conduct, — immediate (or simple) versus remote 
(or complex), and private versus social control; but the 
whole point of the present view as against Spencer's is that 
the antithesis is not between the self as a separate person, 
and the other — society, rulers, gods — as separate per- 
sons. The separation, unless in the case of violence, is 
the end of the process, not the beginning. The "visible 
ruler," the "invisible ruler," the "public opinion" all 
belong to the group. Sometimes they threaten or punish, 



22 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

but more often they cooperate with the member. They 
aid him with food or with water; they fight for him 
and against his enemies ; they avenge his wrongs. The 
"spirit" of the deity comes upon a Samson or a Jephthah 
in time of personal or tribal crisis. 

The evolution of honor and justice illustrates con- 
spicuously the fusion, in early stages, of the social and 
rational controls; at the same time it shows the process 
of the formation of standards and the evolution of indi- 
viduality. 

Honor implies, first, a common group sentiment and a 
sensitiveness to this sentiment. The group opinion is the 
standard for conduct. This is so far social, in a rather ex- 
ternal sense. But the standard and the motivation imply 
more than the externally social, as is manifest when we 
ask. On what basis does a group praise or blame? In 
giving that sort of praise or approval which belongs to 
honor, the members of the group do not react as indi- 
viduals merely, praising what pleases them as individuals. 
They react more or less completely from the group point 
of view, for they do not honor the man who is definitely 
seeking their applause and that alone, i. e. the man who 
seeks to please them as individuals ; they honor the man 
who embodies the group ideal of courage or other admi- 
rable and respected qualities. In like manner a "sense 
of honor " in the individual implies more than a desire 
to receive the praise and avoid the blame of others. It 
implies a desire to be ivorthy of the praise or blame; this 
means a desire to act as a true social individual, for it is 
only tlie true member of the group — true clansman, true 
patriot, true martyr — who appeals to the other members 
when they judge as members, and not selfishly. 

But the distinctions between " seeking honor " and 
seeking to be "worthy of honor" provoke naturally an- 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 23 

other question. What is the true interest of the group? 
Is there any rational basis for this idea rather than that ? 
So the Greek asked for the meaning of the KaXop. The 
way is thus open to the transition from honor to " right " 
as standard, and " duty " as motive. Honor means psycho- 
logically (1) that the ego pole in the developing self must 
measure its values by the alter^s standards, and (2) in 
order to gain value in the alter^s eye must cease to be 
mere ego and broaden itself to the aims and values of the 
whole social self. 

Right or law (the word is the same in Greek, Latin, 
German, French) begins likewise, as will appear, with a 
personal edict or decision, and gradually loses this personal 
character to become objective and rational. Psychologi- 
cally, it is therefore the recognition of the standard pre- 
sented by the alter pole with the backing of the whole 
self. What, then, are the differences between honor and 
right ? Four may be noted : — 

1. Honor is fixed rather by the traditions or sentiments 
of a group than by reason or principle. It is thus better 
fitted to hold the undeveloped man or the boy until rea- 
son can make stronger appeal ; often, of course, it holds 
him against reason. 

2. It is more limited in reference. It always implies the 
group. Right may start with a limited vision, but its very 
logic forces it to become general. To give a reason 
iniplies an appeal to a universal standard, and law has 
attempted to give reasons. Honor implies some specific 
class : the honor of a gentleman, of a king, of a college 
student, of a soldier, of a woman, is each a distinct code. 
The soldier may be impure, he may not show fear ; the 
woman may show fear, she must be chaste. 

3. It has a more personal, concrete support, since it 
dwells constantly in the minds of the persons of the group. 



24 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AXD PSYCHOLOGY 

vrho enforce it Trith praise or ridicule. The conception of 
Tvhat is right is not so constantly supported and rein- 
forced. 

4i. It does not involve so sharply defined a personal re- 
sponsibility as the conception of right and wrong. An 
erring son may bring shame upon his parents : a wife's 
act may injure her husband's honor (although it would 
probably not be considered that a husband could injure a 
wife's honor in the same wayi. The conception accords 
in this with what has been noted as to the lack of personal 
responsibility in group life. 

The standard and sentiment of honor may therefore be 
regarded as a preparation for the more definitely rational 
conceptions of right and duty. It marks also an earher 
stage in the evolution of individuality'. For the sebE of 
honor is more completely immersed in the group self. The 
individual has less opinion and principle of his own. He is 
^' with the o'ano\"' The " g^a.n2: '' or the " union.'" or the less 
organized but no less influential class based on wealth or 
respectability, decides for its members which laws they 
will keep, and which they may break without loss of stand- 
ing, and — so far as they are in tliis stage of moral evo- 
lution — without scruples of conscience. 

Personality reaches a clearer definition, the seH rises to 
new strength and becomes at the same time more com- 
pletely socialized and rational, when it reaches the level of 
rights. In correlation with this comes recognition of the 
rights of others, or justice, and as determining and guar- 
anteeing such rights a Jaic or standard which claims 
respect and fixes duty. All this seems a somewhat com- 
plicated and difficult process, but in the evolution of law. 
which, we must rememlier. is not distinct from morality 
until a later stage, we can see the steps so clearly as to 
make the psychological interpretation easy. Above all. 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 25 

the historical material shows with complete e^ddence the 
fusion of the rational and social factors, and makes any 
such separation as that of Spencer or of Kidd, untenable. 

Carrying out the figure of a bi-polar self, rights re- 
present the ecjo pole reinforced by the consciousness of 
identity with the whole; justice, or recognition of rights 
of others, represents the recognition of the alter pole as 
reinforced by the whole ; law or right is the whole social 
self viewed as standard and authority; duty is either per- 
sonal as directed toward the alUr^ or impersonal and 
rational as directed toward the whole self as law or right. 

First, consider rights. Eights grow out of the selfrassert- 
ive instincts, in so far as these are both reinforced by social 
aid and transformed by being viewed and asserted from a 
social standpoint. To get social reinforcement the private 
claim to life or liberty or property must pay the price. 
And the price is some socializing of the claim. But to 
sociahze is to rationalize as well ; the group will assist 
only what is in some sense "fair," and fahness involves a 
rational, as opposed to a merely impulsive or passionate 
standard. Other claims must be heard, counted (in early 
law), or weighed. Shares must be equalized, and consist- 
ency in successive or simultaneous distributions observed. 
Fairness can be claimed only as it is recognized ; a stan- 
dard thus gains recognition which involves in germ all 
the moral elements. It grows, not by spontaneous genera- 
tion, but out of the necessity on the part of the group 
to control conflicting interests. 

The evolution of law and justice illustrates these steps 
in detail. First, the beginnings of rights to property in 
both Roman and Germanic law are in possession or seisin. 
But this is not yet ownership. For this idea there is needed 
first a conflicting claim. In Germanic law, says Pollock/ 

1 The Expansion of the Common Law, p. 12. 



26 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

" The notion of ownership as the maximum of claim or 
right in a specific thing allowed by law is not primary, but 
developed out of conflicting claims to possession and dis- 
posal." The next step is the social support of witnesses, 
and if necessary the reference to some umpire. Similar 
steps can be traced in Roman law. 

But while " personal power of act" is declared bylhering 
to be " the mother and legitimate protector of right," this 
personal power is not naked physical strength, but the real 
manifestation and assertion of personality, a power active 
in the service of the idea of right. 

Similar steps of (1) assertion of impulse, (2) social sup- 
port, (3) social standard can be traced in criminal law. 
The first step is the impulsive reaction of resentment and 
revenge. But in group life unity of blood enlists the 
support of the kin. Even against outsiders, however, some 
check is felt, for a feud which may involve the whole clan 
in war, or require a Wergeld levied on all, must claim 
some social and reasonable justification. An offense against 
a fellow member of the group requires still more an ad- 
justment of penalty, — a decision from the old men or the 
rulers. The application of this standard and control gives 
at first a sort of duel under public supervision. Greater 
solemnity may invest the duel when it is conceived that 
the divine decision is given through the issue. All ordeals 
and oaths assume such a divine oversight. There is here 
a social standard, but (a) it is irregular and likely to fluc- 
tuate according to the power and position of the offender, 
or the sympathies of the judges ; {&) it permits the indi- 
vidual to be the agent in carrying out the judgment, and 
therefore it only limits passion and does not give the 
process a completely judicial form. 

Advance takes place in both directions, (a) Instead of 
deciding each case by itself, when the temptation is to 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 27 

invent a principle ad hoc, the ruler or judge follows past 
precedents or customs. A legal tradition is thus estab- 
lished, which, however imperfect, is likely to be more 
impartial than decisions growing out of the specific cir- 
cumstances. The generality, though numerical, is in the 
making, (h) The group inflicts the penalty through a 
public official; although it is instructive to note, as illus- 
trated by the "police" among the American Indians, that 
official character is a matter of degree. The warrior of 
sufficient age and distinction becomes by this fact invested 
with group authority. The generality of the standard 
demands a general agent. 

It is possible to trace also a quantitative growth in the 
idea of rights and law. At first a man has rights only as 
he belongs to some group. If none but his kin support 
him, how should the conception of a general claim, a gen- 
eral right, come to consciousness? A man without a group 
is an outlaw, and for Greek or Jew the barbarian or gen- 
tile has no rights. So a " peace " is a local and limited 
sphere of rights. Householder, church, sheriff, each has 
his or its peace of graded worth, and the king's peace, 
most extended and most costly to break, is at the head of 
the list.' 

Finally, we have the conception attained of a universal 
standard, but this is nevertheless first symbolized in ideal 
personalities. A divine law, a divine king who as judge 
of all the earth must do right, whose throne is habited 
by justice and judgment, a judgment of Osiris or Rha- 
damanthus where there is no respect of persons, or — 
where a religious philosophy has replaced personal by im- 
personal conceptions — a law of nature represents this 
final stage. 

^ Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, ii, 454 ; Expansion of the 
Common Law, p. 152. 



28 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

Hand in hand with the evolution o£ the conception of 
honor, law, and right goes the evolution of the moral 
sentiments of reverence and duty. First comes no doubt 
the sense of honor and shame in response to social judg- 
ments. But as we have seen, sensitiveness to these in- 
volves a capacity by the self to judge socially. When 
now we pass from the more or less partial spectator of 
group membership to the " impartial spectator " involved 
in right and conscience, and from the authority of a lim- 
ited group to the authority of duty, we find that duty 
long continues to present itself in personal form. Au- 
thority is not of the pure reason but of the group, visible 
and invisible. But this is not a heteronomy. The senti- 
ment felt — in so far as it is in any sense moral — is not 
fear, but respect, atSws. It involves kinship as well as 
superiority. 

The process of organizing impulsive activity into a re- 
liable and responsible character has its chief development 
through the two agencies of social pressure and self-di- 
rected work. As civilization advances and gets a stronger 
leverage in the individual motives, work becomes more 
and more significant as an organizing agency. Work im- 
plies an end more or less remote. The present activity 
need not be positively unpleasant and without any inter- 
est, as in drudgery, but on the other hand the interest is 
not chiefly immediate, "as in play. Therefore in work the 
mind must project itself into the future, and thus organ- 
ize activity with reference to this future. Continuance of 
work means continuity of the self as will. Common life 
constantly bears witness to the moralizing effects of work. 

But in formation of character, as in formation of a 
standard, the ideal content comes at first in personal em- 
bodiment. The little child will not work long. The savage, 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 29 

aside from the irrelevant complaints of white men that he 
does not gladly exhaust himself for their benefit or for 
the — to him — worthless inducements they offer, is also 
less capable of long-continued work than the civilized man. 
In both child and primitive man social support is necessary. 
Custom embodied in institutions and modes of life holds 
primitive man, and the child as well, to a certain measure 
of stability on the one hand, while the consciousness of 
responsibility is evoked by more positive social pressure. 
This latter holds the doer vigorously to account for his 
deed — and for that of his whole group as well — and 
visits him and his with heavy penalty if it be injurious. 

In early society and early law, and likewise in childhood, 
the conception of responsible personality is undeveloped in 
two respects : (a) the group rather than the individual is 
conceived as responsible; (b) intention is not necessary, 
and hence even animals or inanimate things are regarded 
as responsible, and little or no distinction is made between 
accidental and malicious mischief. Illustrations of the first 
aspect are afforded by the theories of blood revenge,^ and 
of clan or family responsibility in all peoples ; the emer- 
gence to a conception of individual responsibility is finely 
argued against a conservative theory of solidarity by Eze- 
kiel (ch. xviii). Illustrations of the transitional stages in 
the second aspect are found in the Hebrew cities of refuge 
for the accidental homicide. 

Both aspects are conspicuous in the development of 
Germanic and English law.^ In early Germanic law the 
doer was responsible whether he acted innocently or inad- 
vertently ; the owner of an instrument which caused harm 
was responsible because he was the owner, though the 

^ Steinmetz, Ethnologische Siudien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe. 
2 The researches of Grimm and Bruner are summarized, and related to 
the English development by I. H. Wigmore, in Harvard Law Review^ vol. vii. 



30 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

instrument bad been wielded by a tbief ; tbe owner of an 
animal, tbe master of a slave, was responsible because be 
was associated witb it as owner or master ; tbe oatb-belper 
wbo swore in support of tbe party's oatb was responsible 
witbout regard to bis belief or bis good f aitb ; one wbo 
merely attempted an evil was not liable, because tbere was 
no evil result to attribute to bim ; wbere several cooperated 
equally, a lot (frequently) was cast to select wbicb one 
sbould be amenable ; wbile tbe one wbo barbored or assisted 
tbe wrong- doer, even unwittingly, was guilty because be 
bad associated bimself witb one tainted by tbe evil result. 
Tbe development of responsibility passes in general tbrougb 
tbree stages : (1) Tbe idea of misadventure is bazily evolved 
and facts of tbe sort are regarded as ground for an appeal 
to mercy; tbe blood feud cannot be started. (2) Tbe of- 
fender must pay a fine, or in tbe case of an injury by bis 
animal be may free bimself by banding over tbe animal, 
or later, by turning it loose and disavowing it ; or in tbe 
case of injury done by an inanimate tbing, by surrender- 
ing it or abstaining from using it. Tbe tbing, animate or 
inanimate, wbicb caused tbe deatb of a buman being was 
even so late as 1846 in tbeory " deodand," ^ to be banded 
over to tbe king for pious uses, "for tbe appeasing of 
God's wratb. (3) Finally, an oatb tbat tbe owner or 
master was not privy to tbe crime, or later, not aware, 
was received as exculpation.^ 

All tbese facts sbow tbe early social tendency to require 
responsibility ; but wbere one was beld responsible always 
and only for results, witbout regard to intention or motive, 

^ Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, ii, 473. 

2 The Code of Hammurabi recognizes intent to some degree (§ 206, p. 75, 
Harper's Translation), but on the other hand the surgeon who by an unsuc- 
cessful operation caused death or loss of an eye must himself have his fingers 
cut off (p. 79). Similarly the American Indians were quicker to plead 
absence of intent than to admit the plea. Eastman, Indian Boyhood. 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 31 

it was natural to try to shift responsibility. The scape- 
goat of Israel has become proverbial. In the case of the 
child, ruling out the cases where there is a deliberate and 
intelligent purpose to escape responsibility, there is yet an 
instructive remainder of cases in which the child finds a 
real satisfaction in saying, "I didn't break the window, 
the stone did it ; " "I did n't knock off your hat, my hand 
did it." The conception of personal agency is still sufB.- 
ciently fluid to afford him a plausible make-believe. 

A more advanced and fruitful mode of developing re- 
sponsibihty is that of voluntary contracts or promises. A 
conspicuous illustration of the moral possibihties in this 
process is the appeal to the covenant with Jehovah which 
the prophets of Israel continually made, and it is certainly 
psychologically sound to see in this one important source 
for the ethical development of Israel's rehgion. 

Sincerity, or to speak psychologically, directness and 
undivided interest, is at the outset spontaneous. The 
problem here is rather that of the development of a more 
conscious singleness of aim, "purity of heart," or psycho- 
logically, the full enlistment of the self in the aim, so as 
to yield emotional satisfaction. 

"He who abstains . . . and rejoices in the abstinence 
is temperate." This mature and consciously maintained 
purity of motive implies previous conscious recognition of 
other ends and their deliberate rejection. The temptation 
to indirection or hypocrisy comes ordinarily either from 
fear of social penalties, from desire to conform to social 
standards and at the same time not fully socialize the self, 
or, finally, to gain more definitely egoistic results by ex- 
ploiting one's fellows. Children's lies or insincerity are 
more likely to fall under one of the first heads, but it is 
significant that craft and the opposite of single-minded- 



32 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

ness have a place in the folk-tales of many peoples. Jacob 
and Ulysses used their cleverness chiefly against those of 
another clan, it is true, and in diplomacy and interna- 
tional relations generally we are still too crudely moral — 
or immoral — to throw any stones; but the Greeks deified 
duplicity in Hermes, and the fact that Jacob is represented 
as deceiving both father and brother and at the same time 
as the especial favorite of Jehovah shows that the time 
was yet far when the psalmist could cry, " Thou desirest 
truth in the inward parts." Experiences of marital infidel- 
ity ^ seem to have borne a prominent part in the Hebrew 
evolution of the supreme value of faithfulness. In Greece, 
on the other hand, the aesthetic ideal of manly strength 
as portrayed in the Achilles of the Iliad, or in Pindar's 
Apollo, aided later by the scientific spirit of philosophers 
and historians, scorned deception as weakness or found it 
incompatible with the very essence of scientific pursuits. 
Sincerity and truthfulness „as purely formal virtues, or 
duties to self, do not, however, flourish without the aid of 
the social feeling. Sympathy likewise is at the outset in- 
stinctive. But as such it is only the basis for moral sym- 
pathy ; it is not itself moral. To become complete it needs 
(a) intellectual widening through the growth of imagina- 
tion, enabling the individual to enter into the experience 
of others ; this has been emphasized by Adam Smith and 
recently by Cooley ; (b) volitional strengthening through 
conscious purpose to make others' good one's own. It is 
not enough that I put myself in another's place, although 
this is the first requisite ; I must also face the fact that 
to sympathize with him involves pain for me, and must 
nevertheless continue to sympathize. His good must form 
part of my good, and must be valued in itself, not merely 
as a means to my comfort or pride. 
^ flosea, Ezekiel. 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 33 

This conscious issue between self and others is raised 
by the growth of individuahty in any form. Economic 
differentiation of interest is the most powerful agent — 
particularly the advance of private property ; but the as- 
sertion of self interest in any form — political independ- 
ence, rivalry in all its forms, sex jealousy, or desire to be 
free from parental control — may bring it to the front 
and point the diverging paths of selfishness or a more 
completed social self. But before the day of crisis comes 
the individual's instinctive sympathy has been powerfully 
reinforced by a multitude of social agencies. The constant 
companionship of the family circle, the atmosphere of 
tenderness which the parental care affords ; the association 
with the clan in the thrilling experiences of war and chase, 
where a common cause evokes not only like feelings, but a 
will and therefore emotion for a good which is not private 
but common ; the festivals which by dance and song give 
each his share in common service and celebration of tribal 
god or tribal victory ; the solemn or joyous participation 
by the group in the significant experiences of birth and 
marriage and death ; the embodiment of clan or ancestral 
achievement in poetry whose recital causes the group to 
live over with common pride or common suffering the 
glories and calamities of other days until every one feels 
that the clan's history is his history, the clan's blood his 
blood, — all this deepens and strengthens the bonds be- 
tween man and man. This is one great function of art in 
moral evolution. 

The other is that of embodying the ideals and value of 
rare moments in permanent form ; of presenting to the 
many the visions of the few; of lending all the thrill and 
power of emotion to the conceptions of the spirit. 

The emotional forces are reinforced, and, as civilization 
advances, largely superseded by volitional forces. The 



34 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

fact of a common end is by far the greatest socializing tie 
when once it asserts itself. The cooperation of the savage 
tribe in the hunt gives place to the more indirect but far 
more intricate mutual interdependence of various indus- 
tries. Exchange and commerce break down clan barriers. 
The successive creation or emergence under social advance 
of new wants which can be satisfied only through common 
action or reciprocal service, is itself the strongest socializ- 
ing force. Social humanity continually provides new ends 
and therefore new motives for socialization. If any insti- 
tution resists the process, it must conform or give way. 

Idealization of ends and individualization of character 
go on in conjunction with the formal and socializing pro- 
cesses. The great agency here also is the transforming 
influence of social forces upon the primal impulses. 

To satisfy hunger and thirst and protect from cold are 
necessary, but if the process is purely individual it has 
little moral significance. But under social organization 
and especially under the extension of the group to include 
invisible members, the common meal, the festal celebration, 
the family hearth become fruitful not only for promoting 
sympathy and piety, but also for teaching man that he 
does not live by bread only. 

Resentment and anger are likewise necessary, but as 
private impulses may be brutal. Given the social pressure 
of the kinship bond, and note the idealizing effect. Sym- 
pathy, loyalty to the interests of the group, courage in 
its cause, celebration in dance, song, and epic, in stone 
and color, lend first social and then ideal interest to those 
impulsive activities. A conception of the " goel," or next- 
of-kin, who is at first primarily the helper in defense or 
attack, may become idealized as the " Redeemer " to be- 
come the bearer of the highest spiritual meaning. 



ox MORAL EVOLUTION 35 

The impulse of sex^ likewise essential to the race, is 
also so instinct with passion as often to be regarded ra- 
ther as enemy than as ally to moral progress. But under 
social pressure it is likewise transformed. Prescribing 
who shall not marry, and often more positively who must 
marry, celebrating nuptials with solemn or festal cere- 
mony and with all the aids of art, controlling to some 
degree the conduct of the parties after marriage and the 
conditions under which they may be dissolved, the social 
group has cooperated with the 'parental instinct and the 
instincts of possession, in transforming the sex relation 
from one of transient, and often utterly regardless, pas- 
sion to one of thoughtful, permanent, tender union of 
ideal interests and reciprocal service. 

The dti:ision of lahor is a notable factor contributed 
by social organization to the idealizing and individual- 
izing process. If all must do the same thing, individuality 
has relatively little opportunity. It is when the Beethoven 
finds his music, the Sophocles his stage, the Alexander 
his army, the Hildebrand his church, the Newton his 
study, that the capacity and individuality of the man 
shows itself. Group life in its" simplest phases has little 
differentiation except ^^ f or counsel" or "for war." But 
with metal-working and agricultural fife the field widens. 
At first the specializing is more largely by families than 
by individual choice. Castes of workmen may take the 
place of mere kinship ties. Later on the rules of caste 
in turn become a hindrance to individuality, and must be 
broken down if the individual is to emerge to full self- 
direction. 

The lines of development traced thus far would fall 
for the most part within the period prior to the emer- 
gence of the full and clear consciousness of the moral as 



36 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

such. Particular things are approved or condemned; 
standards adequate to this are set up; responsibihty is 
demanded and in a measure attained ; social control is 
recognized and social sympathy felt. But the questions, 
What do right and wrong mean? What is the basis 
of authority ? What is the real or supreme good, as con- 
trasted with the seeming or partial goods? How is one 
to determine moral laws? What is the necessity for 
"disinterested benevolence" or purity of motive? — in a 
word, all the questions involved in the fully conscientious 
attitude are not raised in their general significance. This 
stage in primitive life corresponds in general, as has often 
been remarked, to the period of childhood prior to ado- 
lescence, although in many respects it has of course 
marked differences. The broader and deeper view of the 
significance of conduct is evoked when the self rises to a 
higher level, either (a) by its own inherent development ^ 
or (6) under the strain of meeting new situations, physical 
or social, for which old habits and methods prove inade- 
quate. The process in question involves, in psychological 
terms, the breaking down of old habits which obstruct 
growth, the formation of new ideals and standards of 
valuation, and the reconstruction of the self. We note 
briefly some of the experiences which bring this about : 

(a) Changes in industrial and economic conditions may 
compel or induce such reconstruction by abolishing older 
social and religious sanctions connected with the older form 
of industry, or positively by affording new opportunity 

1 The question may be asked whether the self would develop except un- 
der the conditions named in (6). In the case of races the answer may very 
likely be negative ; we see numerous races which have never risen to the 
level indicated. In the case of the individual, however, we may distmguish 
for purposes of analysis (a) such growth as is due to the normal increase in 
intelligence, and to the general emotional changes due, for example, to the 
adolescent period, and (b) changes due more directly to physical or social 
stimulus. 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 37 

and incentive to individual as versus social development. 
Grosse ^ has shown the intimate relation between clan or- 
ganization and the various types of industry. The change 
from nomadic to agricultural life led to such change in 
Israel's organization that the historian declared, " Every 
man did that which was right in his own eyes," neverthe- 
less it ultimately gave opportunity for great moral advance. 
It was the spirit of the old Japan which furnished the 
morale of the late war. It will be interesting to see what 
the new industrial order will bring about. 

(b) The growth of knowledge, with its connected com- 
parison and criticism, may condemn the old. This is too 
familiar, both in the development of the young and in the 
historic instances of the Greek and the modern epochs 
of enlightenment and emancipation, to need further com- 
ment. 

(c) Calamities or painful shocks may shatter old habits 
and ideals, or change the valuations. This again is a 
familiar experience. The problem of evil, whether national 
or personal, may substitute spiritual for temporal values 
as supreme.^ 

(d) More general, perhaps, than any of the foregoing 
is the expansio7i of the self due to emotional tides, either 
natural or induced. The adolescent period is one world- 
wide illustration. But the almost equally universal phe- 
nomena of ecstatic or mystical religious rites and experi- 
ences are equally in point. From Hebrew prophecy, Greek 
mysteries, and Buddhist or Neo-Platoist contemplative 
ecstasy, down to the ecstatic states of American Indians 
or African negroes, emotional experiences have functioned 
as agencies for lifting the worshiper into union with his 
God, and thus, temporarily at least, of raising him to a 
new level. The modern theory of emotion as representing 

1 Die Formen der Familie. 2 Qf_ JqK Habakkuk. 



38 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

pent-up impulse and deeper reverberation gives the psy- 
chological interpretation for the mystic elevations, and 
moral reformations thus made possible. 

The new significance of the religious ritual, rehgious be- 
lief, and religious emotion after such processes of moral 
deepening deserves special mention. Religion is im- 
mensely important in the early stages of moral evolution ; 
but its significance there is chiefly of two sorts : (1) It 
means a widening and strengthening of the social group, 
and therefore a reinforcement of whatever influences the 
visible group asserts. (2) The superior and mysterious 
nature of the deities or other unseen beings, mani- 
fested through such conceptions as taboos, cleanness 
and uncleanness, holiness and sin, gives to conduct in its 
relations to the gods a peculiar and extraordinary en- 
hancement. This does not mean any distinctively moral 
quality — on the content side, at least. The religious is 
largely confined to ritual, and concerns itself little with 
the relations of man to his fellows. The conceptions are 
moreover largely external and magical rather than internal 
and ethical. Taboos, cleanness, uncleanness, holiness were 
all contagious. Contact with birth or natural death pol- 
luted as truly if not so deeply as the shed blood which 
cried aloud from the ground. The women who were 
'^holy" ^ to the gods at the Canaanite shrines were not, 
even by the standards of the time, of any distinctively moral 
quality. Sacrifice, prayer, and other acts of ritual were in 
part an expression of community with kindred gods, but 
were also the means for gaining favor or averting wrath. 
Even the poignant consciousness of sin manifested in the 
Babylonian psalter is largely without moral quality, and 
the ascetic rites of various primitive peoples are compar- 
able to rites of "purification" in the externality of the 
1 Gen. xxxviii, 12-23. 



ON MORAL EVOLUTION 39 

underlying ideas. Nevertheless even here there was far 
more than the bare fear which some have found as the 
sole content of primitive religion, even if there was not as 
yet possible the complete reverence which has within it 
the element of ethical respect. For in ritual and cultus 
man was acknowledging a higher order, powerful and 
permanent ; in the mysterious there is something which 
lures and challenges, and in its developed phases makes 
the mystic feel at one with his object 5 in the feeling of 
dependence there is the docihty which works against self- 
suf&ciency and stagnation ; in the consciousness of sin as 
a failure, a missing of the mark, there is implied failure 
to measure up to a standard, an implied inadequacy of 
the present self, and consequently the stimulus to recon- 
struction. 

But when once a distinctively moral function or social 
relationship has been incorporated into the conception of 
the deity, — when the god is protector, judge, father, 
husband, or redeemer of kin, all the added sacredness of 
religious conceptions is transferred to the moral. Wrong 
becomes sin ; iniquity becomes impurity ; the awf ulness 
of Sinai invests the moral law; the mystic vision, the 
emotional seizure, become the initial impulse to a life of 
moral enthusiasm and spiritual power. 



n 

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE IN ITS INFLU- 
ENCE UPON POPULATION 

Walter Francis Willcox 

In a brilliant and suggestive series of lectures, from the 
publication of which the modern imperialistic movement 
in England has sometimes been dated and which he called 
" The Expansion of England/' the late Professor Seeley 
attempted to prove that the keynote of modern European 
history is found in the competition of the several powers 
for transmarine expansion and the establishment of a 
colonial empire. This competition, he showed, had resulted 
in the triumph of England in 1763, the speedy dis- 
memberment of her empire in 1783, the strenuous and 
persistent but finally unsuccessful efforts of her main 
rival, France, under the guidance of Napoleon, to regain 
the lost leadership in Europe, and the rise of a second 
British empire after the first had fallen asunder. To 
one not of British birth and not primarily interested in 
politics, the query suggests itself whether Seeley' s thesis 
may not be put in a more general form. Is not the centre 
of modern history found in the efforts at expansion, not 
of England, but of Europe ? Is it not true that soon after 
the discovery of America and of the ocean route to India 
those efforts on the part of Europe, and especially of the 
maritime powers, encountered less resistance in the newly 
opened lands than they did within Europe itself? Did 
not the stress of their competition in consequence become 
more and more extra-European? Were not its essential 



42 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

elements quite as largely economic as political or military? 
Did it not strive more or less blindly for the advantage 
and the increase of the people as well as for the glory 
and prestige of the state ? 

To a non-European student of population these ques- 
tions seem answerable in the affirmative. Certain it is 
that from this point of view there is nothing in the history 
of the last few centuries more notable than the increase 
in the population of the world and the degree to which 
that increase has been a result, direct or indirect, of the 
expansion of Europe. 

To get a clear idea of the increase in the population of 
Europe it is well to begin with a brief review of the serious 
efforts to measure that population, taking them up in their 
chronological order. In 1660 Riccioli estimated the popu- 
lation of Europe at 100,000,000; ^ in 1685 Isaac Vossius 
sharply criticised his conclusion, writing : " The statement 
that Europe maintains 100,000,000 souls is most wide of 
the truth ; on the contrary, if all Africa and America 
be included, that total would not be reached." Vossius 
assigned to Europe only 30,000,000.^ The latter's esti- 
mate may have been reduced by his knowledge of the 
great destruction of life caused by the Thirty Years' War. 

In 1711 Siissmilch concluded that there were 150,000,- 
000 persons in Europe, and in 1761 reduced his estimate 
to 130,000,000. His later result practically controlled the 
opinion of students down into the nineteenth century. 

Arranging the significant estimates of the population 

1 The date usually given for this estimate is 1660. The work containing 
it {Geographiae et Hydrograpliiae Reformatae Lihri XII) is said to have been 
published in Venice in 1672. Die Bevolkerung der Erde, vol. ii, p. 4b, foot- 
note. But the Library of the British Museum contains an edition dated 
1661. 

^ Isaac Vossius, Variarum Observationum Liber. London, 1685, pp. 66-68. 
His discussion of the population of the earth is a digression in a considera- 
tion of the size of Chinese cities. Ibid. 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 



43 



of Europe since the middle of the eighteenth century in 
the chronological order of the dates for which they speak, 
we have the following series : ^ — 



-POPULATION OF EUROPE. 







Popula- 






Popula- 


Date 


Authority 


tion in 
Millions 


Date 


Authority 


tion in 
Millions 


1741 


Siissmilch 


150 


1876 


Behm u. Wagner 


309 


1761 


Siissmileh 


130 


1878 


Behm u. Wagner 


312 


1789 


Black 


150 


1878 


Levasseur 


326 


1800 


Levasseur 


175 


1880 


Behm u. Wagner 


316 


1804 


Volney 


142 


1880 


Levasseur 


331 


1809 


Hassel 


179 


1882 


Behm u. Wagner 


328 


1810 


Malte-Brun 


170 


1886 


Levasseur u. Bodio 


347 


1824 


Hassel 


207 


1892 


Wagner u. Supan 


357 


1828 


Balbi 


228 


1894 


von Juraschek 


365 


1828 


Bergius 


223 


1895 


von Juraschek 


366 


1828 


Hassel 


211 


1896 


von Juraschek 


373 


1830 


Levasseur 


216 


1897 


von Juraschek 


379 


1840 


von Boon 


237 


1898 


von Juraschek 


381 


1843 


Berghaus 


296 


1899 


von Juraschek 


382 


1854 


von Reden 


266 


1899 


Supan 


381 


1859 


Dieterici 


272 


1900 


von Juraschek 


401 


1860 


Levasseur 


289 


1900 


Levasseur u. Bodio 


391 


1866 


Behm 


285 


1901 


von Juraschek 


391 


1868 


Behm 


293 


1902 


von Juraschek 


392 


1870 


Behm 


295 


1903 


von Juraschek 


393 


1872 


Behm u. Wagner 


301 


1904 


von Juraschek 


393 


1874 


Behm u, Wagner 


301 


1905 


von Juraschek 


402 


1875 


Behm u. Wagner 


303 









Table I shows an almost steady but irregular increase 
in the figures from the estimate of Siissmilch in 1761 to 
the present day. No doubt there has been within that 
period a steady and rapid growth in the population of 
Europe. But much of the increase may be due to the in- 
creased accuracy of measurement. It is important, there- 
fore, to judge whether the earliest in this series of figures 
is entitled to any confidence. 

In the celebrated chapter^ in which Siissmilch attempted 

^ Extended from a table in Die Bevolkerung der Erde, vol. ii, p. 5 (1874). 

2 Die Gottliche Ordnung (ed. 1761), ch. xx, " An Attempt to estimate the 
Number of Persons who could live on the Earth and the Number who do 
live on it." 



44 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

to ascertain the possible and actual population of the earth, 
he pointed out at the start how little was known of the 
extent and populousness of the land in the Southern Hemi- 
sphere, and that in northern America. He concluded that 
about one fourth of the surface of the earth, land and water 
included, or 2,322,000 German square miles, each equal to 
16 English geographical square miles, was inhabited land. 
To estimate the possible population of the earth he ex- 
amined how much grain a German square mile would pro- 
duce, arid how many people could be sustained for a year 
by that yield. After allowing for variations in fertility 
and for one third of the land to lie fallow each year, he 
concluded that an average German square mile could pro- 
duce enough grain to support 8750 adult men for a year. 
As children, who constitute one third of the population, 
do not need so much, and as on the other hand much of 
the land must be used for growing fodder for cattle and 
for other products, Siissmilch reduced the figures from 
8750 to 6000 as the number of persons of all ages and 
both sexes who might obtain bread, meat, vegetables, and 
drink from a German square mile. Multiplying the 
2,322,000 square miles of inhabited land on the earth by 
6000, he reached 13,932,000,000 as the possible popu- 
lation of the earth. But he was quite willing to reduce 
this figure to 10,000,000,000, or even to 5,000,000,000, 
being concerned only to prove that the earth was not 
supporting nearly as many persons as it might. He com- 
pared his results with those of Yauban in 1707, following 
the same method and reaching 5,472,000,000 as the 
possible population of the earth.^ The area of the several 
countries of Europe was next considered. The figures of 

' In a posthumous edition these results are compared also with those of 
Leeuwenhoek, in 1679, who reached 13,385,000,000 as the possible popula- 
tion of the earth. 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 45 

Vauban indicated that 147 people might be supported on 
an English geographical square mile ; his own indicated 
375. He took 200 as a round intermediate figure and 
concluded that if all Europe were as thickly settled as 
that, it would contain 550,000,000 inhabitants. 

Siissmilch turned next from the region of vague possi- 
bilities to that of realities and attempted to estimate from 
the best obtainable evidence the population of the several 
countries of Europe. A critical review of his arguments 
and conclusions on a point of fundamental importance 
for my argument will be found in the first appendix to 
this article. Such criticisms as I have been able to give 
his figures point to the conclusion that their net error 
is somewhat on the side of excess and that the popula- 
tion of Europe in 1750 was probably somewhat below 
130,000,000. We may accept this total, then, as near 
enough to the truth for present purposes. It will be noticed 
that the smaller the true population for 1750, the greater 
must have been the increase since that date. Any error 
by way of excess in the early figures tends to mask the 
true increase of population with which we are now con- 
cerned. 

From Table I we may infer : — 

1. The population of Europe more than trebled between 
1760 and 1905. 

2. The population of Europe about doubled between 
1820 and 1900. 

3. It increased by about 100,000,000 between 1820 
and 1872, or in 52 years, and by another 100,000,000 be- 
tween 1872 and 1905, or in 33 years. 

4. There is no evidence of any decline in Europe's rate 
of growth, such as is usual with an increasing density of 
population and such as has been conspicuously true of 
the United States since 1860. 



46 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

5. On the contrary the increase in Europe from 1860 to 
1880 was 14 per cent and 1880 to 1900 was 21 per cent. 

The first form which the expansion of Europe has 
taken is an enormous increase in the population of that 
continent averaging for each year of the nineteenth cen- 
tury over 2,000,000 and for each of the last twenty years 
of that century over 4,000,000. 

Another and more familiar form of the expansion of 
Europe is the outflow of population from that continent 
to other parts of the world. In studying this form of 
expansion by the statistical method, the difficulties are 
even greater than in studying the increase of popula- 
tion in Europe, and our records cover a much shorter 
period. They are of two sorts, — the returns of persons 
leaving the several European countries each year for 
some extra-European country with the intention of re- 
maining, and the returns of persons entering the ports of 
various extra-European countries from across the ocean 
each year with the intention of remaining. Returns of 
the first sort are obtainable for the United Kingdom and 
Norway since 1853, for Sweden since 1866, for Denmark 
since 1869, for Germany, Austria, and Hungary since 
1871, for Portugal since 1872, for Italy since 1876, for 
the Netherlands since 1881, for Spain and Switzerland 
since 1882, and for Russia since 1885. 

The recorded transoceanic emigration from the coun- 
tries named shows the following totals by decades : — 

Period. Emigration over sea. 

1853-59 1,244,000 

1860-69 1,651,000 

1870-79 2,725,000 

1880-89 6,676,000 

1890-99 6,181,000 

1900- 652,000 

Total 19,129,000 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 47 

These figures greatly understate the total amount of emi- 
gration. On the other hand, the returns from the non- 
European countries, showing the immigration into them, 
probably overstate the amount of emigration from Eu- 
rope. For present purposes it is unnecessary to state the 
latter figures and try to harmonize the two series. But 
even if we had accurate measures of these currents of 
migration from the beginning, they would be a most in- 
adequate indication of the transmarine expansion of Eu- 
ropean population. The increase of population in the 
European colonies has usually been far more rapid than 
in the home country, and that increase has swelled the 
total extra-European population of European stock out 
of all proportion to the currents of migration. A clearer 
index of this form of the expansion of Europe may be 
found in the population figures. 

From a careful survey of the population of European 
origin or descent living outside of Europe at the begin- 
ning of the twentieth century, it seems admissible to 
conclude that they number about 100,000,000. The coun- 
tries to which I have assigned over 1,000,000 arranged 
in order are as follows : — 

United States 67,400,000 

Brazil 6,300,000 

Canada 5,370,000 

Russia in Asia 5,000,000 

Australia and New Zealand 4,540,000 

Argentina 4,085,000 

Mexico 2,680,000 

Cuba 1,152,000 

Other countries 3,736,000 

Total 100,263,000 

The enormous increase of any one form of life is 
usually purchased at the expense of other competing 
forms which are displaced by the more efficient or service- 
able type. Cattle and horses have displaced the buffalo 



48 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

and antelope ; wheat, maize, and cotton have restricted 
the range of prairie grass and forest, as the white man 
has that of the Indian, Austrahan, and Malay. Does this 
general principle hold true of the expansion of the popu- 
lation of Europe beyond the bounds of that continent? 
Have the 100,000,000 Europeans by blood now living 
outside of Europe simply taken the place of those of other 
blood ? How has this great expansion of Europe affected 
the growth of other stocks? 

In the United States, no doubt, the Indians have de- 
creased while the whites increased. The same has been 
true of the native stock in the West Indies, Australia, 
and many islands of the Pacific. This has happened in 
so many cases, especially in temperate regions, that 
popular opinion probably believes it to be the prevaihng 
result of the expansion of Europe. But that is a mistaken 
view. On the contrary it will appear that the net result 
of the expansion of Europe has been an enormous in- 
crease in the aboriginal population of the lands to which 
they have gone. A brief review of the evidence on this 
point for some leading areas will show that the popular 
opinion to the contrary has no adequate foundations. 

United States. Exaggerated estimates have often been 
made of the number of Indians living within the present 
area of the United States about 1500 a. d. These esti- 
mates have gone as high as 25,000,000, and the usual 
unit employed in making them has been a million persons. 
But not long since, a very careful study of the subject was 
made by different persons in the United States Bureau 
of Ethnology under the direction of Major J. W. Powell, 
and the conclusion reached that the number of Indians 
then in the present United States was "somewhere be- 
tween 500,000 and 1,000,000," and that there are now 
in the United States "about half as many Indians as 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 49 

when the good queen sold her jewels." If we accept the 
mean of the two figures as the most probable estimate for 
1500, and the enumeration of the Census Office in 1900, 
268,000, as correct, this would indicate a decrease of 
about 500,000 Indians in four centuries. 

Canada had 108,000 Indians in 1903, and it may 
fairly be doubted whether they were much more numer- 
ous on the same area in 1500. The evidence, arguments, 
and conclusions of the United States Bureau of Ethno- 
logy apply in the main to the northern neighbor, with the 
additional fact that the staple food plant of the Indians, 
maize, did not and does not thrive in most of Canada. 

West Indies. The Indian population of Cuba at the 
date of its discovery has been variously estimated at be- 
tween 200,000 and 1,000,000 Indians, and that of Porto 
Rico at between 100,000 and 600,000.^ The smaller of 
each pair of figures is probably too large. This was 
clearly the opinion of Alexander von Humboldt regard- 
ing Cuba, and he is the best critical student who has ex- 
amined the subject. His results are confirmed by more 
recent conclusions in other fields. Probably 500,000 
would be much too large a figure for the entire aboriginal 
population of all the West Indies at the time of their dis- 
covery. 

3fexico. The best source of information is Alexander 
von Humboldt, who passed a year in Mexico in 1803-1804, 
and who examined the question of population with care 
and critical acumen. I have found no estimate of the 
population of the present Mexico at the time of Cortez, 
and believe that no materials to base one upon are extant. 
But Humboldt is willing to affirm that " the whole of the 
vast region which we designate by the general name of 
New Spain (Mexico), is much better inhabited at present 

1 Census of Cuba, 1899, p. 65 ; Census of Porto Rico, 1899, p. 23. 



50 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

than it was before the arrival of the Europeans." ^ The 
evidence offered for the conclusion is the spread of agri- 
culture in Mexico to large, fertile, and well-settled districts 
which before the Spanish conquest were sparsely settled 
by pastoral or hunting tribes. The same authority con- 
cludes that the number of Indians in Mexico had been 
on the increase for the preceding fifty years, as he put it 
in one place, or for the preceding century, as elsewhere 
stated, the evidence being derived from " the registers of 
capitation or tribute." 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century he esti- 
mated : " The number of Indians in New Spain exceeds 
two milhons and a half, including only those who have no 
mixture of European or African blood." ^ It is usual to 
assume that about 37 per cent of the present population 
of Mexico is of pure Indian blood, which would mean 
nearly 5,200,000 Indians, and a doubling of the pure 
Indian population of Mexico during the nineteenth cen- 
tury alone. However wide a margin of error we may 
ascribe to these figures, it seems to me indisputable that 
the increase of the pure Indian population of Mexico 
since 1500 has been so great as more than to offset the 
decrease in other parts of North America, including the 
West Indies. If so, the pure Indian population of North 
America has increased in the last four centuries. 

What is true of North America holds with even greater 
force of South America, which contains no such great 
areas as the eastern United States and Canada, in which 
the Indians have been displaced, and no areas like the 
West Indies, formerly well settled, in which the Indians 
have been exterminated. On the other hand, the processes 
of race mixture have gone further in South America than 

1 Political Essay on New Spain, English translation, vol. i, p. 71. 

2 Idem, p. 98. 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 51 

in North America, and it would be difficult to show how 
much pure Indian blood remains on that continent. From 
various figures in the ^^Statesman's Year Book" and else- 
where I have estimated them as 6,700,000, and the entire 
number in the Western Hemisphere as 13,600,000. A. H. 
Keane reaches a much smaller figure, 9,900,000.^ But 
I see no reason to believe that the number in 1500 a. d. 
approached 10,000,000. I conclude, therefore, that the in- 
flux of whites into America, while it may not have caused, 
has certainly been accompanied by, an increase of the In- 
dians in that hemisphere. 

Australasia. The migration of the European to Tas- 
mania, Australia, and New Zealand has been attended by 
a decrease, and in the case of Tasmania, a disappearance 
of the aborigines. The numbers of the latter were small, 
200,000 being, I judge, an outside estimate for the three 
areas. 

To find an offset to this decrease of aborigines in Aus- 
traha and New Zealand we need go no farther than Java. 
This island increased its population, the great mass of 
whom have no trace of European blood, from about 
4,000,000 in 1800 to about 29,000,000 in 1900. It is 
almost as large as New York State, contains not one large 
city, and yet has not far from four times as many inhabit- 
ants as the Empire State, or more than one third as many 
people as the whole United States. This single case of 
increase in aboriginal population under the influence of 
Europe is enough to outweigh all the known decreases in 
all other parts of the world several times over. Nor is there 
any evidence of a slackening in the rate of Java's growth. 
More than half of the century's increase occurred during 
the last thirty years, in which period the population q^ 
Java increased more than 80 per cent, or about seven 

1 jVIills, International Geography, p. 106, 



52 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AXD PSYCHOLOGY 

tenths as fast as the United States during the same time. 
The present density of population in Java is about as great 
as that of Belo'ium and much o-reater than that of the 
most densely settled American State, Rhode Island. Yet 
we are told that not more than one third of the en the 
island is now under cultivation. 

Changes of a similar sort but not of so remarkable a 
nature have been in progress in the FhiUj^j^bie Islands. 
'' The earliest complete enumeration of the islands appears 
to have been . . . made in the year 1591." It showed a 
population of 667,000, and it is thought that this was if 
anything an exaggeration of the true numbers. "Their 
ancestors probably did not number more than half a mil- 
lion at the time of the Spanish settlement " ^ (1565 A. d.). 
There are now about 7,500,000 persons of native stock in 
the Archipelago. 

For India I have found only two estimates of the pop- 
ulation in the eighteenth century. Slissmilch, after a few 
general considerations, concludes that it cannot be assigned 
more than 100,000,000 inhabitants. And Burke some 
years later (1783) said in his Speech on Mr. Fox's East 
India Bill, "If we make the period of our estimate imme- 
diately before the utter desolation of the Carnatic (i. e. 
about 1760 ), we cannot in my opinion rate the population 
at much less than thirty millions of souls." Whether any 
weight be given to either of the preceding estimates, it is 
certain that the population of India increased greatly 
during the nineteenth century. The first census of India, 
that of 1872, showed a population of 186,000,000, but this 
was probably an understatement. The estimated popu- 
lation in 1851 was 178,500,000 ; that enumerated in 1901 
was 231,900,000, an increase of 53,1:00,000 in 50 years, 
due in part to annexations of territory, but mainly to in- 

^ Census of the Philippine Islands^ 1903, vol. i, p. 411. 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 53 

crease on the same area. The increase in the population 
of India during the last half of the nineteenth century 
was almost exactly equal in amount to the increase in the 
United States during the same period. 

In JEgypt a similar change is in progress. The popu- 
lation in 1800 was estimated by the French at 2,460,000. 
The population in 1897 was counted by the English as 
9,734,000, an increase nearly fourfold in the century 
during which Europe little more than doubled its popula- 
tion. The increase after the English took control of the 
finances in 1882 was more than twice as rapid as before 
that date and more rapid than the growth of the United 
States during the same period. 

Changes less remarkable but of a similar sort are in 
progress in Algiers, Although French, Spaniards, Jews, 
and Italians constitute large and increasing groups of 
European population in that colony, yet the Mussulman 
population of native stock increased from 2,850,000 in 
1881 to 4,072,000 in 1901, or 43 per cent in 20 years, 
about double the rate in Europe and not much less than 
the rate in the United States during the same period. 

The expansion of Europe has had a stimulating more 
often than a retarding effect upon the increase of the 
aboriginal population. This influence has been exercised 
by the Spaniards in Mexico and the Philippines, probably 
by the Portuguese in Brazil, by the Dutch in Java, the 
French in Algiers, the English in India and Egypt. 

In Mexico, Central and South America, and to a far 
less degree in other parts of the world, this expansion of 
Europe has resulted in the appearance of other millions 
of mixed blood, of whom Keane reckons in the Western 
Hemisphere 12,270,000 and I nearly twice that number. 
But the figures are too uncertain to base any argument 
upon. 



54 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

Another aspect of the expansion of Europe should like- 
wise be considered. The European race has carried the 
African with it to America, and that hemisphere now con- 
tains more than 13,000,000 negroes/ and North America 
with the West Indies now contains about two and one 
half times as many negroes as Indians. These negroes 
have increased with much greater rapidity than the ne- 
groes in Africa or the Indians in America and almost as 
fast as the whites in America. If an increase of pop- 
ulation be deemed a test of prosperity, then the negro 
population of America has prospered in its new home. 

In one instance the expansion of Europe has taken 
another form, the acceptance by a native people of the 
main industrial and economic features of European civili- 
zation. In the latter half of the nineteenth century the 
Japanese did this, and the results upon the increase of the 
Japanese population were most striking. Three censuses 
of Japan were taken in 1721, 1726, and 1732, each show- 
ing a population of more than 26,000,000 and less than 
27,000,000. These results are believed "to be some- 
what trustworthy." In 1828 another census was taken, 
showing a population of 27,000,000, and indicating 
that the population of Japan had been almost station- 
ary for the preceding century. In 1871, only three 
years after Japan had been opened to foreign trade 
and intercourse and modern European institutions, the 
population was returned at 32,900,000, indicating an 
increase of about one fifth in the preceding 43 years.^ 
In 1903 the population was 46,700,000, indicating an 
increase of more than two fifths in the preceding 32 

^ Keane estimates them as 20,000,000, doubtless by assigning to that race 
several millions of the mixed population of Central and South America, 
especially Brazil, for which I have reserved a separate class. 

2 Count Yanagisawa, "On the Progress of Statistics in Japan," in Bulletin 
of International Statistical Institute, vol. xii, part i, p. 349. 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 55 

years. The population of Japan increased 12.9 per 
cent between 1893 and 1903, or more rapidly than 
any European country except Germany, Greece, and 
the Netherlands, and that notwithstanding the fact that 
five sixths of the population live in districts more 
thickly settled than Ehode Island. 

Limitations of space forbid the further enumeration of 
instances. But those already given may suf6.ce to show 
that where Europe has gone with its outflowing currents 
of population, its governmental institutions, or its influ- 
ence, the population, both European and native, has felt 
the influence of Europe as a stimulus and has increased 
marvelously. 

To establish any causal connection between the two 
it is important to show conversely that wherever Europe 
has not gone, population has not increased. Unfortunately 
where Europe has not gone the statistics are scanty or 
untrustworthy, and therefore this aspect of my thesis is 
not to be proved. But some evidence may be offered re- 
garding the two main bodies of population still untouched 
by the vivifying influence of Europe, — the Chinese^ and 
the inhabitants of Central Africa. 

Regarding the former population of China I have 
found no evidence of equal weight with that given by 
Martini in 1655,^ who bases himself upon the results of a 
Chinese census of 1651 which indicated 58,900,000 men. 
Martini adds that these were men, excluding children, wo- 
men, soldiers, magistrates, priests, eunuchs, and the royal 
family, all of whom were untaxed. He concludes that this 
figure makes it admissible to estimate the entire popu- 
lation of China as 200,000,000. If this be correct it is 

^ The accessible statistical evidence regarding the population of China is 
critically reviewed in Appendix II, 

2 Novus Atlas Sinensis, quoted by Herman Wagner in Die Bevolkerung der 
Erde, vol. ii, p. 7. 



56 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

probable that the population of China in the seventeenth 
century was at least double the population of Europe at 
the same date. According to a census which is said to 
have been taken in 1812, the population of China proper 
was 360,000,000 ; according to another in 1842, it was 
413,000,000 ; according to " an estimate made for the pur- 
pose of the apportionment of the indemnity to the Pow- 
ers " after the Boxer outbreak, it was 407,000,000 ; and 
according to an estimate by Professor Supan made after a 
thorough and critical sifting of the conflicting and treach- 
erous evidence, it was 320,000,000 at about the end of the 
nineteenth century and 219,000,000 in 1776. If these 
estimates are correct China increased in population about 
two fifths in a century and a quarter, during which Eu- 
rope was trebling in population. But I find it difficult 
to attach any importance to the Chinese figures. If in 
one instance they were padded because the Chinese em- 
peror, not satisfied with the rate of increase of his people, 
ordered a careful count of them to be taken, and if that 
padding amounted to an excess of 48,000,000 over the 
true population, as Professor Supan argues, why may it 
not be the custom to report a normal increase regardless of 
the facts ? Certainly the regularity of the increase shown 
in Supan's table is enough to arouse suspicion. On the 
whole, therefore, I prefer the earlier conclusion of Dr. 
Behm in 1882, that the best basis for an estimate of the 
present population of China is the census of 1812, namely, 
350,000,000, supplemented by the assumption that the 
population since that date has been stationary, the calam- 
ties of civil war, famine, and flood having eaten up the nat- 
ural increase. One writer on the subject living in China 
estimates the losses of life from the Taiping rebellion at 
40,000,000 to 50,000,000; from the Mohammedan dis- 
orders in three provinces at 8,000,000 to 16,000,000, and 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 



57 



from the famine at the end of the seventies in five pro- 
vinces at 13,000,000 to 17,000,000. So a correspondent 
of the London " Times " reported the number drowned 
by a flood of the Yellow Eiver in 1887 at from 1,000,000 
to 7,000,000.^ Even though all these conjectural estimates 
may be much exaggerated, yet there is little doubt that 
the civil disorders and natural calamities which have 
afflicted China during the nineteenth century have been 
far more serious and far more destructive of life than 
those which have been felt either in Europe or in India. 

Kegarding the population of Central Africa we have 
even less information than for China. A suspicion that 
the population has been decreasing is awakened by the 
following series of estimates for the entire continent for 
a series of years : — 



TABLE II. — ESTIMATED 


POPULATION OF AFRICA. 






AUTHORITY 


DATE. 


AUTHORITY 


DATE. 


Bevolkerimg 


Hiibner's 


Bevolkening 


Hiibner's 




der Erde. 


Tabellen. 




der Erde. 


TabeUen. 


1872 


193 


_ 


1896 




170 


1874 


203 


_ 


1897 


_ 


178 


1875 


206 


- 


1898 


_ 


179 


1876 


200 


_ 


1899 


_ 


179 


1878 


205 


_ 


1900 


_ 


179 


1880 


206 


199 


1901 


_ 


177 


1882 


206 


- 


1902 


_ 


182 


1891 


164 


- 


1903 


_ 


180 


1893 


- 


169 


1904 


_ 


149 


1894 


- 


169 


1905 


141 


143 


1895 


- 


169 




- 





We know that during the period covered by the above 
figures nearly all the semi-civilized countries around the 
coast of Africa and under the control of Europe increased 
in population. It is clear, therefore, that the estimate for 
the remaining uncivilized parts must have fallen even 
more rapidly than the figures for the whole continent. 

1 London Weekly Times, January 13, 1888, p. 15. 



58 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

Whether this is due to an actual decrease of the popula- 
tion or to an increased accuracy in what were previously 
overestimates does not appear. It seems to me probable 
that both influences have been at work. There is no 
question but that in Central Africa of recent years the 
losses of life have been terrible. The Mahdist revolt was 
most destructive. " About three-fifths of the whole popu- 
lation are said to have perished during the ten years from 
1882 to 1892 through wars, famines, epidemics, plunder- 
ing expeditions, and other calamities caused by the Mah- 
dist revolt,"^ which would mean a loss of 6,000,000. This 
influence was local, but the overland slave trade is not 
dead and is probably more destructive of life than the 
maritime slave trade ever was. A majority of the slaves 
who start on a caravan are said to perish on the road. 
Yet another almost universal check to population among 
the native tribes of Central Africa is executions for 
witchcraft. Miss Kingsley tells us : " The belief in witch- 
craft is the cause of more African deaths than anything 
else. It has killed and still kills more men and women 
than the slave trade." ^ 

The preceding argument leads to these conclusions : — 

Europe had more than three times as many inhabitants 
in 1900 as in 1750. 

The persons of European stock living outside of Europe 
in 1900 were three fourths as many as the entire number 
of inhabitants of that continent in 1750. 

This vast increase of Europeans by blood in 150 years 
from 130,000,000 to 500,000,000 has not been secured 
at the cost of a decrease of other human beings. 

On the contrary the native stocks reached by Euro- 
peans have usually increased in numbers. 

* A. H. Keane in Stanford's Compendium: Africa, vol. i, p. 419 (1895). 
2 Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, pp. 462, 463. 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 59 

This is true of nearly all numerous groups living mainly 
by agriculture in the tropical or subtropical regions of 
America, Africa, Asia, and Malaysia. 

Where the influence of Europe has not gone and we 
have any clue to the facts, they indicate a stationary pop- 
ulation, or at least a very low increase. 

The enormous increase in the population of the earth 
from perhaps 1,000,000,000 in 1750 to 1,500,000,000 in 
1900 must be ascribed mainly to the expansion of Europe. 

An increase in the quantity of human life is not neces- 
sarily a good. If that increase had been purchased at the 
expense of quality, it might be doubtful whether mankind 
were the gainer. But this expansion of Europe has inured 
mainly to the benefit of higher and perhaps the highest 
types of mankind, and within those types the quality of 
life, so far as it is capable of measurement by the statisti- 
cal method, has improved. The food supply is better and 
more regular ; it is far more effectively distributed ; many 
articles, like sugar, coffee, and tea, formerly luxuries the 
use of which was restricted to the very few, have come 
into general use ; health has improved ; life is longer ; 
education more diffused ; the pleasure derived from hu- 
man association and from the dissemination of news is 
far more general and stimulating. 

This great increase in the sum of human life main- 
tained on the earth at any one time is not due primarily 
to any increase in the birth rate. More children are born, 
no doubt, but probably not more relatively to the popu- 
lation. On the contrary, the ratio of births to the pop- 
ulation is probably lower than formerly and still decreas- 
ing. Even though the amount of water which falls into a 
lake shows no increase, yet if the outlet be clogged, the 
amount lying therein will increase rapidly. Mankind's 



60 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

outlet from life is being clogged, — each individual tarries 
longer before he finds the gateway of death. The prime 
cause of the increase of mankind is the decrease in the 
ratio of deaths to population. Civilization has secured a 
greater mastery over the powers of nature, and in conse- 
quence the earth is enabled to support more men, and 
men of a higher type, and to stimulate their endeavor by 
all the evidences of progress realized and all the hopes 
for progress yet to be. Herein is a fundamental justifica- 
tion of the agricultural, industrial, and political civiliza- 
tion which has accomplished so grand a result. 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 61 



APPENDIX I 

Review of Sussmilch's Effort to estimate the Population op 
Europe about 1750 

If the true population of Europe in 1750 was much larger than 
the estimate I have followed, then to that degree the argument 
to show that Europe has increased its population very greatly 
since that date loses in weight. It is essential, therefore, to re- 
view critically the evidence, on which the estimate is based. I 
shall take up the countries in the order followed by Siissmilch, 
giving in the text a summary of his position and the evidence for 
it, and in footnotes my own comments and conclusions. 

Portugal and Spain. According to Ustariz in 1723 Spain 
had 1,140,103 hearths, or famihes. Allowing five persons to 
a family, this would give a population of less than 6,000,000. 
After making reasonable additions for clergy, soldiers, beggars, 
etc., and for omissions in the count of hearths, Siissmilch could 
not reach a larger total than Ustariz; namely, 7,500,000. As 
Portugal was one third the size of Spain, Siissmilch assigned it 
one third of its population, or 10,000,000 for the whole penin- 
sula.^ 

France. Both Botero and Mcolosi assigned to France 15,- 
000,000 ; Riccioli, basing himself on reports from the French 
members of the Society of Jesus, put it at 20,000,000. An esti- 
mate published about 1700 a. d. in " L'Etat de la France " made 

1 Berg in his Statistique Internationale, published in 1875, gives the popula- 
tion of Spain in 1769 as 9,160,000. (J. Bertillon, Statistique Internationale, 
p. 31, note). Portugal at the beginning of the nineteenth century had about 
28 per cent, and at the end of the century about 27 per cent of the popula- 
tion of Spain. If Berg's figures are correct, and this ratio between the 
population of the two countries held in the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, the Spanish peninsula then had about 11,700,000 people instead of the 
10,000,000 estimated by Sussmilch. 



62 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

it 19,385,378. Yauban before the last war put it at 15,000,000 
and after the war 13,000,000. Later and on more trustworthy- 
e^ddence, Yauban esthnated it at 19,094,000. A more recent 
anonymous ^Titer whom Siissmilch thought trustworthy put the 
figure at 17,000,000, and this last figure was accepted.^ 

G-reat Britain and Ireland. Botero and Riccioli assigned it 
only 3,000,000. Chamberlayne gave England alone 5,000,000. 
King gave 5,500,000, and Derham accepted thelatter's figures. 
In Ireland the people were enumerated at the time 2uper cajnta 
tax was imposed, and 1,034,102 were found. Scotland, being 
about the size of Ireland, was assigned 1,000,000. So Siissmilch 
accepted Struyck's figure of 8,000,000 for the United King- 
dom.2 

Netherlands. Struyck gave the population of the seven pro- 
vinces at two and a third million and Siissmilch accepted the 
figure, adding an equal number for Austrian and French Neth- 
erlands, or 5,000,000 in all. Kerseboom gave much larger fig- 
ures.3 

Simtzerland. Assuming that 200 persons live on each square 
mile, the standard density for agricultural countries, Switzerland 
would have 2,500,000 inhabitants. But the mountainous sur- 
face and the use of much of it for pasture make such an estimate 
valueless. If Switzerland could easily raise more than 200,000 

1 Levasseur, after a careful review of the evidence, was disposed to give 
weight to the estimate of the Abbd Expilly made about 1768, namely, 22,- 
000,000, and gave as his own figures for 1715, 18,000,000, and for 1770, 
24,500,000 inhabitants, which would indicate about 22,000,000 for 1750. 
Population de la France, vol. i, pp. 215, 216, 288. 

2 The Census of England and Wales for 1851 (vol. ii. sec. i, p. Ixviii) 
estimated the population of that country in 1751 at 6,336,000. The popula- 
tion of Ireland in 1754 is given as 2,370,000 by the Eiicyclopoedia Britan- 
nica on the basis of tax collectors' returns. The population of Scotland, 
"according to returns furnished by the clergy to Dr. Webster in 1755" 
and quoted by the same authority, was 1,250,000, making the population of 
the present United Kingdom at the middle of the eighteenth century nearly 
10,000.000. 

3 Holland in 1795 had 1,880,000 inhabitants, and in 1839 it had 2,860,000. 
Assuming that its rate of increase between 1750 and 1795 was equal to that 
between 1705 and 1839, it had about 1,250,000 in 1750, and if Belgium then 
had the same, the two contained 2,500,000 people. 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 63 

fighting men, as was often claimed, the entire population might 
be put at 1,000,000. 

Italy, Riccioli assig-ned it 10,000,000 to 11,000,000, Botero 
and Nicolosi only 9,000,000, and SabeUicus only 7,000,000. 
Venetia had 494,325 houses in 1660, which multiplied by 
five would give a population of 2,471,625. The kingdom of 
Naples in 1556 had 483,478 hearths, which multiplied by five 
would give 2,417,390 inhabitants exclusive of priests, widows, 
prostitutes, beggars, and those citizens of Naples who were ex- 
empt from the hearth tax. Naples was assigned 360,000 exclu- 
sive of the persons in religious houses, but later, after the great 
plague of 1656, Riccioli gave Naples only 250,000. His figures 
would give the kingdom of Naples without Sicily about 3,000,- 
000, and with Sicily, to which he assigns 1,500,000, 4,500,000 
to 5,000,000. The States of the Church he assigned 2,500,000. 
Nothing is said regarding the population of other parts of Italy, 
notably Tuscan}^, but the population of the entire peninsula, 
with the adjacent islands, is put down at 10,000,000.^ 

Denmarh and Norioay. From a critical examination of the 
deaths and christenings reported for 1755 and 1756 a. d., 
multiplying the former by 36 and the latter by 27, Siissmilch 
reached the figure of 2,500,000 as an outside estimate. ^ 

Sweden^ Finland^ and Lapland. Baron Haerlemann of 
Sweden gave this kingdom not more than 2,000,000 inhabitants, 
and Baron Flemming accepted his conclusion. Biisching raised 
the figure to 3,000,000, saying that there were 80,000 farms, 
each supporting 20 persons, or a total of 1,600,000, and that 
this was about half of the total population. Siissmilch accepted 
2,500,000 as an outside figure.^ 

1 The population living in 1770 upon the territory of the present kingdom 
of Italy has been estimated by Bertillon {op. cit. page 34) at 14,700,000, 
which would indicate a population in 1750 of about 14,000,000. 

2 Bertillon gives the population of these two countries in 1769 at 
1,540,000, indicating that the figures of Siissmilch are about 1,000,000 too 
large. 

^ By adding the figures given by Bertillon for Finland in 1760, namely, 
491,000, and for Sweden in 1763, namely, 1,940,000, to the number in all 
Lapland at the present day as reported in the Britannicay namely, 27,000, 



64 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

I^ussia. In tlie wars before 1740 40,000 recruits a year 
were obtained by enrolling one from each 125 men capable of 
bearing arms. This would give 5,000,000 such male adults, 
or with the females 10,000,000. Adding 5,000,000 for those 
too young to bear arms or to marry and 2,000,000 for those 
over 56 years of age, Siissmilch reached 17,000,000. Adding 
two or three million for the classes not Kable for military ser- 
vice and four million for the dependent tribes and peoples 
largely in Central Asia, a total of 24,000,000 resulted.^ 

Livonia and Courland. If this region were as densely set- 
tled as Alsace at the same date, it would contain 2,500,000. 
All the evidence indicated a less density, so an estimate of 
2,000,000 was made, with the statement that it was probably 
too large. 2 

Poland and Lithuania. The meagre evidence indicated 
12,000,000 as an outside estimate, a population which would 
result in a density about that of Spain and Portugal.^ 

Hungary had about one third the area of Poland and Lithu- 
ania and could not have much more than one third of its popu- 
lation, or 4,000,000.* 

Turkey in Europe. All accounts indicated a very sparse 
population. On the assumption of 200 persons to a square mile, 

a population of about 1,500,000 is reached, indicating that the figure of 
Siissmilch is about 1,000,000 too large. 

^ This figure exceeds by 5,000,000 that given for Russia in 1762 in 
the Statesman's Year Book for 1905. 

2 As the present population of these provinces of Russia is about 2,000,- 
000, and as Livonia, the most populous, doubled its population between 1816 
and 1897, it is probable that the estimate of Siissmilch is too large by at 
least 1,000,000. 

8 As the present population of Russian Poland, added to the Polish-speak- 
ing residents of Germany and Austria-Hungary, is less than 17,000,000, and 
that of Lithuania about 3,000,000, and as the population of Russian Poland 
in 1897 was 9,456,000, or nearly half that of the population then living in 
the old territory of Poland and Lithuania, and was 2,600,000 in 1815, one 
can hardly assign more than 6,000,000 to the entire area in 1815, and the 
most favorable assumption for 1750 would not give it a larger population. 

4 The imperfect census of 1720 gave 2,580,000. In 1787 9,400,000 were 
reported ; or excluding tlie estimated population of Croatia and Sclavouia, 
8,260,000. The mean of these figures indicates about 4,600,000. 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 



65 



the population would be 42,000,000. But it could not be one 
fourth of that. Siissmilch finally assumed 8,000,000. 

Germany^ including Bohemia^ Silesia^ and Prussia. This 
was the best cultivated and most populous part of Europe. 
With a density of 200 to a square mile, it would have 37,000,- 
000 inhabitants ; with one of 150, as Yauban assumed, it would 
have 28,000,000. Assuming it to have the same density of 
population as France, it would contain 23,000,000 inhabitants. 
Biisching's figure was 23,000,000. Siissmilch finally accepted 
24,000,000.1 

The total of these estimates and of my rough revision of 
them appears in the following table : — 



Country. 


Estimates of Sussmilch 


Figures that seem 


in Millions. 


to me preferable. 


Portugal and Spain 


10 


11.7 


France 


17 


22.0 


Great Britain and Ireland 


8 


10 


Holland and Belgium 


5 


2.5 


Switzerland 


1 


1 


Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia 


10 


14 


Denmark and Norway 


2.5 


1.5 


Sweden, Finland, and Lapland 


2.5 


1.5 


Russia 


24 


19 


Livonia and Courland 


2 


1 


Poland and Lithuania 


12 


6 


Hungary 


4 


4.6 


Turkey in Europe 


8 


8 


Germany 


24 


23.1 


Total 


130 


126 



The evidence seems to warrant accepting Siissmilch's esti- 
mate of 130,000,000 as in error, probably, on the side of excess, 
and accepting any computations of increase from it as in error, 
probably, on the side of understatement. 

1 The population living in 1800 on what is now the German Empire was 
24,500,000 ; in 1850 it was 35,400,000. At the same rate of increase it would 
have been about 17,000,000 in 1750. 'Adding 6,130,000 for the reported 
population in 1754 of what is now Austria, a total of 23,130,000 is reached, 
indicating that Siissmilch's figures are approximately correct. 



66 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

APPENDIX II 

The Population of China and its Inceease since 1750. 

Sources. The main authorities which have been used are : — 

I. The Numerical Relations of the Population of China dur- 
ing the 4000 Years of its Historical Existence ; or the Rise and 
FaU of the Chinese Population. By T. SacharofO. Translated into 
English (probably from the German translation of the Russian 
original) by the Rev. W. Lobscheid. Hongkong, 1864. 

II. The Manchus, or the Reigning Dynasty of China. Their 
Rise and Progress. By Rev. John Ross. Paisley, 1880. 

III. Die Bevolkerung der Erde in the Erganzungshefte to 
Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1872 to 1901. This work con- 
tains in various places figures and criticisms by Professors 
Behm, H. Wagner, and A. Supan. 

IV. A Note on Some Statistics Regarding China. By E. H. 
Parker in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society for 1899, 
vol. Ixii, pp. 150-156. 

V. China Past and Present. By E. H. Parker. London, 1903. 
Chapter ii. 

VI. Recensement de la Population de la Chine. By A. N. 
Kiaer in the Bulletin of the International Statistical Institute 
for 1905, vol. XV, part i, pp. 49-54. 

It is noteworthy that the writers in number III make much 
use of I, but none of II or IV, while Professor Parker seems not 
to have seen I or III. Numbers I and II were found in the 
Library of Yale University. 

According to Mr. Parker's statement, China has made each 
year since 1741, with a few exceptions due to special causes, a 
" return of all ages, castes, and sexes." These returns are found 
in an official Chinese publication recounting the acts of the gov- 
ernment year by year. At the end of the section for each year 
are given the revenues and the population for the year. Mr. Par- 
ker has read each chapter in order to note " any casual remarks 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 



67 



upon population and revenue," and prepared a table giving tlie 
population of the empire reported for each year between 1741 
and 1860 inclusive, except 1741, 1748, 1752, 1765, 1768, 1777, 
1780, 1789, 1820, 1826, 1831, and 1834, a series of 108 returns 
in 120 years. Although in each of his publications he gives 
brief notes and explanations, he does not attempt any extended 
or thorough criticism of his figures. 

According to a recent letter of Prince Chung, President of 
the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs,^ the registers of popu- 
lation of each district in China are sent annually to the finance 
minister, and embodied in a report to the emperor. There seems 
no reason to think that the alleged census of 1902 differed 
materially from any of the annual reports, the results of which 
are given by Mr. Parker. The general character of the series 
and the changes in population indicated by the figures are shown 
in the following diagram, on which the changes in the population 
of Europe during the same period (see Table I) are also given. 
I have added after 1860, distinguishing that part of the curves 
by a broken line, some later returns which were accepted by Mr. 
Parker or which seem probably to come from the same source. 




Alleged Increase of Population in China compared with that in Europe. 

These figures for China may be considered first on the assump- 
tion that they are approximately correct, and secondly with ref- 

^ International Statistical Institute, Bulletin, vol. xv, part i, p. 52. 



68 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

erence to their trustworthiness. It will be noticed that the Chi- 
nese figures show much more marked fluctuations than those for 
Europe. The true curve for Europe would probably be far more 
regular and smooth than this indicates, most of the irregularities 
resulting from differences between the various authorities and 
not from actual irregularities in the increase. 

Mr. Parker comments on the increase of 44,000,000 between 
1774 and 1775 as follows: "A sudden and unexplained jump 
. . . which I can only guess is partly to be accounted for by 
the formal annexation of Turkestan, Kalmuckia, and Tibet; 
but all these together, including even Mongolia, Kokonor, and 
Manchuria, would scarcely account for 44,000,000 souls. I hope 
to elucidate the mystery some other time." An alternative ex- 
planation is given later. The great drop in 1794-97 is explained 
by Mr. Parker as due to " certain rebellions," and the fluctua- 
tions of 1810-1819 as the results of " the vagaries of the Yellow 
Kiver." The great fall which began in 1852 is ascribed to the 
Taiping rebellion. He says : " In 1852 there was already a 
reduction of 100,000,000, and by 1860 a further reduction of 
70,000,000. . . . This does not necessarily mean that 170,000,- 
000 people perished in ten years, but probably that the anarchy 
prevailing rendered it impossible to secure any returns at all in 
devastated districts." This must be interpreted, apparently, as 
indicating that returns from certain provinces were lacking in 
the figures for 1859 and 1860 as well as in those for earlier 
years, although in the same author's extended table there is no- 
thing to indicate it, and the natural inference from that source 
alone would be that the figures for the last two years were believed 
to be complete. The author, relying upon evidence from Chinese 
through Russian sources, concludes " that the present minimum 
population of China is not far from 385,000,000," and that the 
probable population in 1894 was about 422,000,000. 

It should be noticed that Mr. Parker has not fallen in with 
Sacharoff's book or either translation of it, else he could not have 
written, " The Rev. J. Ross of Manchuria is the only European 
student who has, at least so far as I am aware, produced figures 
from ancient Chinese history indicating what the population was 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 69 

supposed to be at a given date," and would have made some ref- 
erence to Sacharoff 's explanation of the sudden increase of popu- 
lation between 1774 and 1775, by which he was mystified. That 
explanation is that the emperor in 1775 " detected great neg- 
ligence ... in the compilation " and " issued an edict com- 
manding that a census be taken in the most careful and reliable 
manner," whereupon "the authorities . . . invented another 
mode of compiling the lists by arbitrarily augmenting the figures 
representing the number of individuals." The average annual 
increase of the reported Chinese population between 1769 and 
1774 was less than 2,000,000; that between 1774 and 1775 was 
44,000,000. Rejecting these padded figures. Professor Supan 
estimates the population in 1776 on the hypothesis that the rate 
of annual increase in each province between 1771 and 1776 was 
equal to the average annual rate between 1749 and 1771. This 
method leads to a total of 219,000,000 instead of 267,000,000. 
Carrying this reduction through the period since 1776, Supan 
reduces the present figures for China from 394,000,000 to 
346,000,000. He also gives a table showing the per cent of 
annual increase or decrease of each province between 1749 and 
1894. For almost a century, 1749 to 1842, nearly every province 
showed a steady increase. In this part of Supan's table there are 
160 cases of increase and only 2 of decrease. I cannot bring 
myself to believe that this corresponds to the facts. In British 
India and the native states between 1881 and 1901 there were 
61 such cases, 48 showing an increase and 13 a decrease. In In- 
dia 21 per cent of the cases showed a decrease ; in China about 
1 per cent. I am entirely unable to believe that China through- 
out a century and in every one of the eighteen provinces enjoyed 
such continuous and uniform prosperity as this would indicate. 
My conclusion from the internal and the external evidence is 
that no reliance can be placed upon the Chinese figures. 

The preceding paragraphs, written before I had seen the first 
two authorities cited, find confirmation in those books. The opin- 
ion of Sacharoif is indicated in the following sentences: "The 
clerks think in general thus of the matter : the place is distant, 
the country large, the people a great multitude, my superior is 



70 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

unable to discover an error or to ascertain the real number of 
the population. In accordance with this view they omit and add 
ad lihitwn, putting a large figure for a small and vice versa .... 
In this negligent and reckless way they carry on their work. . . . 
We need, therefore, not be surprised to find that aU the registers 
are exhibiting great lack of veracity. Hence they are useless to 
the government and in the end altogether fictitious." That the 
translator shares in this severe judgment appears from the fol- 
lowing sentences in his preface : " When the mandarins were no 
longer obliged to call more people to the performance of crown 
service or to remit a larger amount of taxes to the government, 
whatever the numerical strength of the population might be, 
they continued to add to the figures of former years ad libi- 
tum until, in spite of war, inundations, and epidemics, they had 
swelled the amount of the population to more than 412,000,000 
souls. Not a single person who has traveled beyond the river 
vaUeys will believe that China contains 400,000,000 inhabit- 
ants." 

Some confirmation of my opinion that the population of China 
has been increasing very slowly if at all during the last one hun- 
dred and fifty years may also be derived from the book by Mr. 
Ross. He ends his discussion of the population of China by writ- 
ing : " In conclusion we may state our belief that the population 
of China proper is at the present day little if any greater than 
it was in 1753." 



Ill 

DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN 
POWER 

Robert Akchey Woods 

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself 
like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks ; methinks I 
see her as an eagle muing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled 
eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unsealing her long-abused sight 
at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance. — Milton. 

It is recognized with increasing clearness by sober- 
minded men that during the ensuing century civilization 
is to be profoundly altered by further developments of the 
impulse of democracy. As a historic force affecting every 
aspect of life, its great past is not more than an introduc- 
tion to its future. The underlying nature and the varied 
tendency of democracy as revealed at the present day must 
therefore be considered a momentous object of inquiry. 

Democracy has always rested back upon a high and posi- 
tive view of human nature and destiny. Omitting from 
consideration the so-called democracy of ancient times as 
having been merely a modified aristocratic system, we can 
see clearly that democracy found its motive in Christianity. 
In its developed modern aspect it takes its start from the 
Eeformation, whose watchword " justification by faith " 
fitly expresses to the moral imagination the surpassing 
dignity of the individual human life. As taught by the 
French philosophers of the eighteenth century, democracy 
was distinctly Utopian, based upon a conviction of the 
perfectibility of human nature, and formulated in the 



72 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

belief that it would introduce profound and all-embracing 
changes in the direction of a better social order. 

As a revolutionary cause, directed at an old regime 
whose complicated structure of tradition, sanction, and 
authority was well-nigh impregnable against its principles 
and hopes, democracy was necessarily negative. The ne- 
cessity of disintegrating the old order was so greatly em- 
phasized that, for the time at least, everything was staked 
upon shattering its bonds. So intensely was this purpose 
followed that it became easy to believe that should 
these relentless barriers to the expansion of human life 
once be broken, life could then be easily trusted to its 
own inherent impulses. The abolition of monarchy would 
give to every man that personal detachment from the 
control of any other man which was implied in the teach- 
ing of the Reformation. The removal of fixed aristocratic 
privilege would furnish these new-made freemen with a 
life contest in which they would be no longer hopelessly 
handicapped because undeserved consideration had been 
lavished upon a favored few. 

With the ground thus swept clear of the institutions 
that gave character to absolutism, and with liberty and 
equality established and maintained by a minimum degree 
of collective sanction, it was felt that by a series of spon- 
taneous changes the relations of men would gradually seek 
the form of a great human brotherhood. In this country, 
on account of the revolutionary beginning of our govern- 
ment, and the necessity of a crystallized constitution in the 
early days of extreme administrative weakness, the theory 
became fastened upon our institutions and traditions that 
only such authority as is essential to personal liberty and 
to the preservation of equality before the law, may be in- 
trusted to public administration. Because of the enormous 
expanse of the country and its well-nigh inexhaustible re- 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 73 

sources, this scheme for the ordering of society with a 
modicum of administration and a very large measure of 
unrestraint was for some time satisfactory as being scien- 
tifically adapted to the precise situation. But in France, 
after the meaning of the Revolution and its results became 
apparent, some of the very men who had looked forward 
most ardently to the social progress which was to follow, 
came to realize fully that a scheme of administration 
pledged only to maintain the elements of freedom and fair 
play among individuals would go but a short and disap- 
pointing distance in developing the general industrial, in- 
tellectual, and moral well-being of the community and the 
nation. Social progress does not come of itself, any more 
than does maintenance of equal rights. It requires to be 
directed and promoted systematically and with intention. 
There is no side of human development which does not 
demand to have its available forces strongly grasped and 
consciously urged in the direction of complete fulfillment. 
The common weal involves the common will. 

Not only is this true : as social relations become more 
complicated, if there is a large open sphere of life where 
the general outcome is left to that individual initiative 
which from the social point of view is nothing but hap- 
hazard, new and positively dangerous tendencies are soon 
set at work, — tendencies which not only gravely affect 
general social well-being, but actually threaten the strong- 
holds of law and justice through which it is designed that 
liberty and equality shall be kept inviolate. 

It is at this stage of democracy that every thoughtful 
person must admit the civilization of the world now stands, 
particularly in the more advanced countries. It begins to 
be realized that the final watchword of democracy, " fra- 
ternity," must be something more than a sentiment ex- 
pressive of the moral state into which the community or 



74 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the nation is to come by the happy chance of balance 
among' an infinity of self-assertive uncoordinated impulses. 
" The mechanical juxtapositions of individualism " do 
not lead to that constructive harmony which is presup- 
posed in the last and greatest article in the democratic 
creed. 

The maintenance of general liberty and equahty is 
found to be possible in the first instance only through 
popular cooperation. A democratic government is simply a 
great cooperative society. In a fully developed civilization 
the spirit of cooperation becomes, in different forms and 
degrees, quite as essential for industry and culture as for 
political well-being. In fact, one form of applied frater- 
nity, embodied in government, made possible liberty and 
equality ; and this with the distinct purpose of securing 
the fulfillment of the fraternal motive of democracy in all 
other phases of human well-being. Under this motive, in 
these open spheres of life theoretically not trenched upon 
by administration, we begin to see quite clearly the ne- 
cessity for large extensions of applied fraternity. These 
may come in any one of a great variety of forms of public 
or private collective action ; let them take such form as 
experiment shall warrant, but come they must. It has 
well been said that the individual cannot dream himself 
into a character. The hope of early democracy that human 
beings would prove to be spontaneously democratic has 
proved to be pallid and inane as against the self-assertive 
forces which the open sphere of life leaves uncontrolled. 
Democracy destroyed the old social synthesis. It must it- 
self create the new. Aggressive on the side of liberty and 
equality, it must become still more aggressive for effectual 
and comprehensive fraternity. Threatened with porten- 
tous dangers as a result of its great but ill-balanced ser- 
vice to civilization in the spread of liberty and equality, 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 75 

it must and can ward off those dangers, and at the same 
time vastly increase its net total of achievement, by work- 
ing out in determinate form its great principle of frater- 
nity. The only cure for the evils of democracy is more 
democracy. 

Thus we find that a system of ideas which has been 
narrowly conceived of as limited chiefly to the public 
ordering of the state, widens out so as to embrace the 
whole scope of life. For the twentieth century, demo- 
cracy is not only a theory of politics ; it is confidently 
invading the realms of industry, of education, of social 
intercourse, of ethics, and of religion. Under the demo- 
cratic motive the whole history of civilization is being 
written anew, so as to set forth for every age and coun- 
try the conditions and tendencies which have existed 
among the people as a whole, with a change of the his- 
torical perspective in each case so as to throw proper 
emphasis upon the part played by the previously ignored 
majority. It is more and more true, also, that working 
hypotheses for the future of civilization turn upon social 
aims which include all the human beings in a given com- 
munity, on all sides of their lives, and in the exercise of 
collective choice and initiative. 

It is of great importance to recognize the fact that de- 
mocracy, in exercising its function of bringing a larger 
general fulfillment of their natures to the vast mass of 
men, does not content itself with existing resources. It is 
definitely an advanced system for increasing the net result 
of the productive labors of mankind. American slavery 
would have been overthrown economically by the compe- 
tition of free labor had there not been a civil war. The 
democratic countries are the countries which are able vastly 
to develop their resources because they are democratic. 
Freedom and justice find their fruitage in strong and fresh 



76 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

initiative. The democratic country can reward its work- 
man far more liberally than despotism, and sell the products 
of its industry in competition with those of the despotic 
country, because the high incentive so increases the work- 
man's productive power. The democratic country makes 
sound and steady increase in its population, both natu- 
rally and from without. The old regime regarded the alien 
as a probable conspirator against the sanctions of abso- 
lutism; democracy, confident of itself, welcomes him as 
a new disciple and producer. Thus the essential spirit of 
democracy, even in its elementary forms, is that of infec- 
tious creative enterprise. The economist, measuring the 
chief productive resources of a nation, places first free 
institutions. 

The sum of all the enlargement given to life by demo- 
cracy is found, however, in the right of association. Free- 
dom and equality are more essential and more valuable 
at this point than at any other. The purely individual 
sort of liberty is not likely on any large scale to be seri- 
ously abridged, but the liberty to join one's life with other 
lives in many different ways can be more concretely dealt 
with and more surely minimized. Free association is in 
fact the chief secret of the large development of that 
personal initiative which flourishes under conditions of 
liberty. It is association that gives liberty its scope and 
zest. Some thinkers hold that reasoning is essentially a 
social process. Every form of intellectual advance de- 
pends infinitely more upon freedom of human association 
than upon free contact of the individual man with nature. 
Freedom of the press and of travel are simply aspects 
of the freedom of association. To the philosopher or 
investigator, they are simply links through which the 
fellowship of science is made strong and broad. Every 
individual pioneer in whatever realm of knowledge, how- 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 77 

ever isolated he may seem, is simply one of a close-ranked 
corps. 

The same thing is particularly true in the economic 
world. The promoter of trade is dependent for all but 
the least of his results upon the system of credit, which 
is simply the organizing for practical purposes of the spirit 
of human fellowship. Men trust one another in wider and 
wider reaches, until finally this system of trust in fellow- 
men circles the globe everywhere. It is through this subtle 
form of association that the bewildering achievements of 
modern commerce are worked out. 

It is sometimes thought that the factory system with all 
its vast developments is due to certain mechanical inven- 
tions. But the spirit of invention was reinforced and made 
effective by the growing spirit of association ; and above 
all, machinery is simply the appropriate tool of a type of 
industry organized by association. 

The great principle upon which the modern factory sys- 
tem, and indeed the whole of modern civilization, is built, 
is that where two men work together, the total result of 
their labor is something more than it would have been if 
they had worked separately. The proportion of this sur- 
plus product grows greater as a larger number of workmen 
are properly associated. It increases the more rapidly as 
the work to be done is complicated and technical and is 
organized accordingly. The most effectual form of asso- 
ciation is reached when an industry is so specialized that 
each workman can devote his whole skill to a single branch 
of it, but the work of all is dovetailed together in a gen- 
eral scheme. This secures a complete product which is 
usually of better quality, and is always many times greater 
in quantity, than would be possible to isolated workmen. 

During the modern era the productivity of the human 
race has attained a vastly accelerated rate of progress. It 



78 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

isj of course, out of the question to measure this gain with 
any sort of accuracy, but it is hardly possible to over- 
estimate it. Mr. Gladstone once said that during the first 
half of the nineteenth century more wealth had been added 
to the world's store than had been added before that time 
since the daw^n of history. He also said that during the 
third quarter of the nineteenth century as much wealth 
had been produced as in the first half. If we were not lost 
in the midst of this amazing development it would seem as 
if some magical change had been effected in the nature of 
civilized man. The usual explanations of it are entirely 
insufficient. The concrete, measurable element in the phe- 
nomenal gain which the race has made is chiefly ascribed to 
that side of intelligence which has to do with discovering 
the secrets of physical nature ; and this too, with little re- 
gard to the fact that the discovery of these secrets, and the 
application of such discoveries, is only in small part an in- 
tellectual process of the individual. The profound truth is 
that the prime source of modern industrial progress is in 
human association. It is this force chiefly which has brought 
to light the mysteries of nature and has developed devices 
for manipulating physical forces. With these devices as 
tools, it has formed an ever more complicated system for 
drilling, disciplining, marshaling, and throwing into action 
organized masses of men, each mass being urged forward 
by a spirit, sometimes weak, sometimes overwhelming, of 
intelligence and achievement which goes with and belongs 
to the mass as such. It is association that has unimaginably 
developed the productiveness of the earth. We live not in 
the age of invention, but in the age of association. The 
great man of modern days is the man who understands this 
preeminently creative power. 

A hundred years ago it w^as believed by economists that 
the human race was approaching the margin of subsist- 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HOIAN POWER 79 

ence, — that the power of the earth to support a much 
larger number of people was a matter of extreme doubt. 
Meanwhile the race has developed in itself, as a race, a 
depth of productive resource which has placed the limit 
of subsistence ages away in the distance. By this devel- 
opment human well-being has been in the total consider- 
ably increased, and the people of civilized countries have 
had their lives definitely enlarged and enriched. The pre- 
sent movement of civilization is, it is true, accompanied 
by an element of social unrest, but this comes out of the 
hopes of the time rather than out of fears. It represents a 
conviction that, as vaguely understood social forces have 
already accomplished so much, they may, by the further 
adjustment of social relations, be led to achieve vastly 
more. In the main aspect this unrest stands for an exten- 
sion of the principle of association beyond the lines up to 
which it is at present dominant. There is the f eeHng that, 
as applied to industry and culture, the proper all-around 
benefits of associated effort in the present and its greatest 
development for the future are hindered by the dominance 
of crude, unsocial motives. The ever-growing sense of 
the germinating and reduplicating energies which have 
their being and power in association, the very miracle 
of what has been accomplished through the extension of 
freedom and equality in association, is what gives indom- 
itable force to the demand that through more association 
the conditions for the fulfillment of life shall be made still 
more equal and still more free. 

On general principles, it would be supposed that in a 
civilization where government was by democracy there 
would be a strong tendency to create a system of demo- 
cratic administration for industry and for culture as well. 
The inquiry arises whether democracy in its essence is 
not, equally with the old regime, a form of inclusive social 



80 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

synthesis having its own peculiar authority and sanctions. 
It appears that the people by cooperation are carrying 
on the enormous business of government, and that this 
business in due time is much better administered in the 
interest of all concerned than under the old regime. Why, 
then, may it not be better from a practical point of view 
to extend this method further and further in the fields of 
industry and culture, in order that this more just and more 
productive form of social synthesis may have its way there 
as well as in the sphere of government? Democratic 
government secures the greatest liberty of the greatest 
number, not by chance, but by organization. The question 
is, therefore, whether in these other great fields of life 
the highest sum total of personal initiative and achieve- 
ment may not be even more surely stimulated and given 
appropriate scope by a system which has been worked out 
with specific foresight to secure that result. The force of 
this inquiry is by no means exclusively directed towards 
the extension of a governmental regime to cover the vastly 
complicated interests of the economic and educational 
world. It is more and more clear that the principles of 
democracy may gradually be applied in these fields of life 
by voluntary effort and with a minimum of governmental 
interference. Whatever steps may in the future be taken 
in the direction of what is loosely called socialism, we 
need have little fear of the bugbear of a mechanical state 
socialism. 

On the other hand, it is impossible not to observe the 
rapid strides with which the motive of democratic associa- 
tion has advanced in connection with the develojDment of 
modern industry. At the beginning of the factory system, 
the workmen were at first dazed with its vast productive- 
ness and with their own increase in material well-being. 
After a little, however, it was found that this system as 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 81 

such was so powerful that many of the posts which had 
been filled by men could be filled by women, and a little 
later that women could even be displaced by children. 
In their alarm at what seemed to them the central and 
dominating factor in the new system, the machines, the 
workmen broke out in riots, and endeavored to destroy 
these inventions. They proposed to return to the old 
type of industry, in which the workman with tools of his 
own was an independent industrial factor. This effort 
was futile, because there was a great force behind the 
machine. 

A generation later the workmen, with the help of hu- 
mane teachers who combined practical experience with 
social instinct, learned that the force to be dealt with was 
not mechanical invention but the power of association. 
It was this which had created the factory system and made 
the mechanical inventions available. Curiously enough, 
when the workmen first began for their own protection to 
make use of this same force of association, the employers, 
the men who had gained the start in learning to under- 
stand and manipulate this force, seized with a sudden 
fear, undertook to destroy the trade union, just as the 
workmen had endeavored to destroy the machine. Recog- 
nizing that organized capital had behind it the force of 
social gravitation, the economists of the day reasoned 
that under the factory system, on account of the compe- 
tition among applicants for employment, the wage of the 
workman must necessarily tend to decline to a point where 
it would be barely sufficient to maintain himself and his 
family. All efforts to check the action of this so-called 
economic law would, they held, be futile. It has now been 
clearly demonstrated that organized labor has the power 
of history behind it as distinctly as organized capital ; that 
it represents to a greater or less extent a measure of con- 



82 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

trol for the working man over the conduct of the factory 
system, particularly as it affects himself. The lesson of 
responsible collective action as the indispensable means 
of maintaining that standard of working-class life which 
is the substratum of civilization, has slowly and toilsomely 
been learned. As the principle of associated effort is 
applied by the employer more and more widely, the 
association of labor tends to parallel it : on the one hand, 
we have great business combinations covering whole 
countries and even reaching around the world; on the 
other hand, the labor movement is more and more effect- 
ively federated by nations and in friendly international 
alliances. 

In Great Britain one fifth of the retail trade is carried 
on by cooperative societies, which are complete economic 
embodiments of the principles of democracy. Against a 
development of this kind must be placed the great growth 
of trusts and similar combinations in this country. Yet it 
can hardly be denied that this very development has made 
the vast majority of the conservative people of the coun- 
try seriously alert to the need of such democratic tendency 
in connection with industrial affairs as will exclude at 
least the extreme outcropping of oligarchic power over the 
supply of the means of subsistence. Partly for this rea- 
son, and partly because in the conflicts of associated capi- 
tal and associated labor the interests of the consumer are 
sometimes grossly ignored, the spirit of association among 
consumers is rapidly growing. The natural way in which 
this spirit expresses itself, as everybody is a consumer, 
is through some form of public action. As the spirit 
develoj^s, we may expect to see thorough organization of 
public sentiment for crystallizing in municipal, state, or 
national legislation the determined conviction that indus- 
trial organization must not produce grossly undemocratic 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 83 

results. If this public demand is not effective in restrict- 
ing extreme tendencies of existing forms of industrial 
administration, we must expect that it will undertake, in 
one way or another, definitely to organize on a democratic 
basis such parts of our great industry as prove to be not 
amenable to partial and restrictive action. 

The main body of objection to this general tendency 
has to do with the vital importance of leadership. It is 
urged that the democratic form of business organization 
would not produce and afford full stimulus to higher 
forms of expert capacity and leadership. It is the most 
serious weakness of the democratic form of government 
that it has not yet learned sufficiently to trust the ex- 
pert, the man who by heredity and training has the physi- 
cal energy, intellectual grasp, and moral power effectively 
to handle groups and masses of men or to bring to light 
the hidden resources of nature. Administrative democracy 
is, in its early stages, a scheme of education rather than 
of efficiency. Its aim is first of all to bring on the whole 
mass of the people. The root of the matter is, democracy 
represents a strongly confirmed and ever spreading con- 
viction that as the people are thus brought on, gradu- 
ally laying hold on power proportionately to their newly 
elicited capacities, the average man proves equal to the 
political demands laid upon him, and makes a more alert 
and more loyal member of the community. 

An essential aim of this popular training, however, 
must be to produce the readiness to trust capable leader- 
ship, and give it large scope for fresh initiative. Such a 
trust must insure the provision of ample opportunities 
and of ample incentives and rewards. But the very full- 
ness of the provision to be made for the great men under 
democracy will raise the question whether democratic 
leaders and experts will desire or consent to be made 



84 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

drunk with power ; whether they will wish to be deprived 
of the reinforcement and uplift that comes of working in 
a group where all the others have opportunity and reward 
commensurate with their ow^n. An increasingly demo- 
cratic society wdll thus considerably change the standards 
of men as to what constitutes incentive. 

It will also modify tests of expertness. In the effort to- 
ward municipal reform, for instance, it has been thought 
that it is only necessary to bring to the front men who 
are technically trustworthy and skillful in the round of 
administrative work in the different city departments. But 
the majority of the voters will not support this kind of 
reform. There are other candidates, not so expert techni- 
cally, who from the popular point of view have a kind of 
expertness that is even more valuable. These candidates 
know the people and their needs ; they see the great new 
demands which changed human conditions are placing 
upon the city administration. The majority of voters will 
inevitably, and, in the main rightly, trust this type of 
expert as contrasted with the other. The expert under 
democracy must combine with his technical skill a gift 
for anticipating the significance of a new want among 
the people at large as it ceases to be merely individual 
and sporadic and becomes common and public. 

It has been an American tradition that our industrial 

and commercial arrangfements have been such as to de- 
cs 

velop the best type of leadership. It is the current theory 
that great stakes are necessary in order to draw out a 
kind of ability which is assumed to be of extreme rarity; 
but recent experience is bringing a shade of doubt upon 
this conviction. It is by no means certain that great 
stakes attract the highest order of constructive genius. 
It is by no means certain that the continued possession 
of such great rewards is conducive to the best exercise of 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HmiAN POWER 85 

such genius. There is abundant evidence in different 
civilized communities to show that where the higji feehng 
of pubHc responsibihty obtains with regard to the supply 
of the universal utilities of life, capacity of the very first 
order can be developed and retained by a moderate de- 
gree of financial incentive. The question which is to be 
more and more seriously wrestled with is, whether the 
gains from free initiative in industry wdll not be vastly 
greater if there can be some sort of equitable distribution 
of scope for initiative among the entire number of the 
members of any particular industrial group. The ever- 
growing spirit of democracy among the rank and file 
of the people of the country, made strong and universal 
by all our institutions, and particularly by the public 
schools, is making it increasingly a matter of difficulty 
to organize an industrial force upon a merely autocratic 
or military basis. It is already found, in many lines of 
manufacture and trade, that a frank recognition of this 
spirit, and a definite provision for some form of partici- 
pation on the part of the employees in the special profits 
of the business, and even in its administration, conduces 
to the removal of friction and to a greater degree of gen- 
eral cooperation and of individual productiveness. 

Admitting, then, that a well-organized limited monarchy 
might furnish a more efficient form of administration than 
a newly developed democratic government, it is indis- 
putable that the risks of democracy are a condition pre- 
cedent to that enhanced industrial production — only 
partly democratic in its organization — which springs up 
so much more readily in a democratic state. The great 
productiveness of American industry is credited chiefly to 
our free government. If freedom in the political sphere 
can thus indirectly enhance industrial productivity, it is 
not unreasonable to suppose that this same force, if by 



86 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

gradual experiments it is introduced into industrial organ- 
izatiouj will still further increase industrial efficiency and 
the total industrial product. On the other hand, we now 
begin to realize that the upward tendency of govern- 
ment is considerably hampered by powerful influences for 
political demoralization which come out of the extreme 
oligarchic power common in our industry and commerce. 
In other words, our industrial organization is now threat- 
ening that political freedom which is the prime essential 
source of economic progress. There are not lacking judi- 
cially minded men who believe that a considerable increase 
in democratic standards for industrial organization is neces- 
sary to the protection, not only of democratic government, 
but of the elementary basis of our national industrial 
efficiency. 

A doubt has already been suggested as to whether the 
existing so-called great industrial leadership is, for a fully 
developed civilization, really great, — whether there is not 
a very large negative element in its service to the com- 
munity. Aside from this, it does not seem as if it could 
be seriously questioned that, with a proper system of edu- 
cation, the best form of productive genius could be de- 
veloped for service in which enterprise and ambition would 
find its fulfillment in high achievement for social wel- 
fare, rather than in possession of vast power whose use is 
dependent solely upon one's personal caprice. Certainly 
there is such great leadership in professional and scien- 
tific occupations, and in the public service; and here the 
reward is found in the work done, and in social honor 
and power. 

Even in industry itself there are very important ten- 
dencies that are working strongly towards the democratic 
type of leadership. As organized labor gains in strength 
and steadiness, and matches itself against organized cap- 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 87 

italj there is developed the permanent coneiHation or eon- 
tract system. Under this system a group of organized 
employers and another group of men representing organ- 
ized labor combine into a general board, which serves 
to bring about, on an increasingly democratic basis, a 
higher form of organization for the industry as a whole. 
The success of the movement for distributive cooperation 
in Great Britain, which has already been referred to, is 
now being reinforced by the success of agricultural cooper- 
ation in different countries of the world. In the United 
States, — in the irrigation belt of the Southwest and also 
in the fruit-growing parts of California, — farmers com- 
bine to conduct their business on a large scale by cooper- 
ation. The great developments which are just ahead of 
us in the way of scientific agriculture, which will again 
considerably enhance the productivity of the earth, can- 
not be worked out by the autocratic or oHgarchic system 
which prevails in general industry and commerce. These 
agricultural developments must, as a practical matter, be 
managed by cooperation. In the case of every type of 
industry that tends to become a monopoly, there is a 
constantly increasing likelihood that the community will 
undertake its regulation. In many cases, regulation being 
found insufficient, the community in one shape or other 
is undertaking the actual control and management of such 
industrial and commercial service. As the whole civiliza- 
tion of the world is one, an amazing amount of experi- 
mentation is going on in this direction, and as fast as one 
experiment becomes measurably successful its logic spreads 
from city to city and from country to country. This ten- 
dency for democratic governments to re-shape economic 
conditions is carried farthest in New Zealand, where it 
assumes a national scale, and is expressed in a highly 
efficient government, one of whose main objects is closely 



88 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

to restrict extremes of wealth and poverty, and definitely 
to see to it that every citizen has, so far as it can be made 
possible, an equitable economic opportunity. 

I have already suggested the large part which the 
educational motive is playing in this historic movement 
towards democratizing both- industry and culture. The 
shortcomings of our national system of education from a 
searchingly democratic point of view must begin to be 
keenly realized. It is our boast that every child born on 
American soil has an opportunity to make the most of his 
inborn talents ; but in saying this we overlook the in- 
creasingly serious fact that, particularly in our large cities, 
the majority of children are born amid conditions which 
are extremely prejudicial to their physical and moral 
growth. Nor do we appreciate the fact that the over- 
Avhelming majority of the children of a new generation — 
fully ninety per cent — receive no education beyond that 
of the grammar school, very many of course not receiving 
so much as that. Our public school system also, except 
for a negligible minority, provides no vocational training, 
so that nearly all of our young people enter upon their 
industrial careers mainly unprepared to apply their native 
powers. This is the more serious as the apprenticeship 
system has almost entirely passed away. 

It has been a part of our easy optimism to believe 
that every youth with capacity will fight his way up into 
opportunity. Besides the large number whose capacity is 
smothered in infancy and early childhood by bad condi- 
tions, there is another very large proportion made up of 
those who, with excellent or unusual capacity of other 
sorts, do not have that quality of will power which enables 
them in their early years to overmaster all obstacles. This 
type of person is quite as valuable to the community as 
the one who, with a lower degree of other capabilities, has 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 89 

exaggerated will power. It is not necessarily a satisfac- 
tory test of high serviceableness that an individual should 
have that extreme assertiveness of will which enables him 
easily to brush aside all material and social restraints. 

From the point of view of national productivity, either 
directly through the present more or less autocratic busi- 
ness form of organization or through that presumably 
higher and more productive system which must be grad- 
ually developed by the extension of democratic principles, 
the existing educational scheme must, therefore, be seen 
to involve an enormous waste of personal power and so- 
cial resource. The truly democratic educational system — 
and towards this we are in one way or another making 
headway — will provide that the children of our cities 
have such physical and moral surroundings and care as 
will bring it at least easily within reach of possibility that 
they shall grow up into healthy manhood and womanhood. 
It will furnish the sort of training which is designed to 
equip the rising generation as far as possible for its actual 
work in the world. The development of talent will be 
traced carefully as it expresses itself intellectually, indus- 
trially, and morally under the teacher's eyes. For each 
child that displays capacity, opportunities of education, 
however advanced, that will be appropriate to and com- 
mensurate with the young person's gifts, will be provided 
quite without regard to the merely accidental fact of the 
parents' economic or social condition. If it is admitted 
that a democratic community above all requires the de- 
velopment of the highest order of leadership, then there 
can be no way so promising of securing in each generation 
the maximum harvest of ability born into that generation as 
by the development of a truly democratic system of educa- 
tion. Professor Alfred Marshall, the greatest of English- 
speaking economists, estimates that not less than one half of 



90 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the best natural genius born into a country is born among 
the working people, and of this a great part is lost to itself 
and to the community on account of the lack of opportu- 
nity. He says that no form of national profligacy can be 
worse than this, and that there can be no more promising 
way of increasing national wealth than by providing, 
through whatever means may be necessary, for the proper 
care and thorough training of the whole of the potential 
genius that is born into each generation. 

In education, then, we find a sphere in which absolutely 
without question the bold extension of democracy's equi- 
table motive and comprehensive human grasp would enor- 
mously increase national production and national welfare. 
Through such a system the tendency towards caste would 
be broken. We should not in this or any other way 
come to a state of flat social equality ; but undoubtedly 
a nation educated by a system thus scientifically and 
democratically devised would have a far narrower range 
of extremes of condition than exists at present. Such ine- 
qualities as would remain would be based upon actual 
facts of trained capacity free from favoritism, and expert 
service qualified, in most cases, by an instinctive acquaint- 
ance and sympathy with popular needs. Once the possibili- 
ties of democratic collectivism, including governmental 
action in different stages and the many forms of voluntary 
public-spirited organization, are fully worked out in the 
educational field, we shall see the power of democracy 
asserting itself more strongly than ever, in creating new 
and far greater resources for the enhancement of human 
well-being. 

In this connection a most significant change is coming 
over the educated classes in general, in that every form of 
intelligence is more and more directed toward the human, 
and the broadly human, aspects of its particular field of 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 91 

inquiry and interest. Learning is made up of the humani- 
ties in a new sense. Science, literature, painting, music, 
the drama are seeking, not only their proper material, but 
their proper constituency in the common life. 

There is a close relation between democracy and cos- 
mopolitanism. A system which has for its object, and on 
whose success depends the removal of misunderstanding, 
hatred, and friction within a community or a nation, of 
necessity gradually leads towards a removal of such bar- 
riers to human relations with other communities and na- 
tions. The most serious problem which has confronted 
democracy in the last fifty years has been whether its 
cohesive force is sufficient to hold together the people of 
a great nation presenting many different types and tradi- 
tions and scattered over a wide extent of territory. By 
the complete establishment of a federal union in this 
country, it has been demonstrated to the world that such 
a democratic nation can exist. Its existence being assured, 
the further demonstration is now in process that a nation 
so made up has before it altogether unusual possibilities 
of development in economic and intellectual power. In 
fact, only under a democratic system could any such vari- 
ety of racial types and groups as there are in this country 
be held together in a common unity while retaining a 
very large degree of social distinctness and special loyalty. 
In the different new groups are additional possibilities of 
the development of that varied personal economic and 
intellectual enterprise which is held as one of our most 
precious possessions. But such possibilities of sound in- 
dividualism cannot be realized except by an increased 
degree of associated action of all sorts. We must deter- 
minedly make sure that none of these different types — 
whether on account of having arrived later on our soil 
than others, or on account of certain defects of their 



92 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AXD PSYCHOLOGY 

qualities, or on account of stubborn remnants of racial or 
sectarian prejudice in them or in us — shall be deprived of 
full and appropriate opportunity of training and vocation. 

There is needed thus in connection with the many 
new developments of associated action — they are sure to 
come, and the only question is how they shall be directed 
aright — a kind of social statesmanship which shall work, 
not only upon governmental administration, but upon our 
whole scheme of industrial and cultural organization. And 
this must be supported by a new patriotism, which shall 
minimize social sectionalism while giving due emphasis 
to all phases of the heredity and tradition of our differ- 
ent racial groups, shall work towards the full democratic 
development of education, and shall encourage all experi- 
ments towards gaining that large growth of industry 
which will come from the proper development and the 
equable distribution of individual scojDe and incentive. 

Perhaps in the progress of this epochal movement we 
shall even have suo-o^estion as to that further removed 
but still more radical and wonder-working transforma- 
tion which will come about when the human race shall 
have learned to shape its course, not merely with refer- 
ence to the lifetime of single generations, but with a view 
to generations of the future. The latest researches of sci- 
ence indicate that by far the surest and largest possibili- 
ties of the development of the human race lie in artificial 
selection. At present the problem of regulating the types 
which will be born into the coming generation by a proper 
selection of parents is in several respects almost entirely 
beyond human ken. The most that can be done in this 
direction under our available knowledge is to cut off as 
far as possible the continuation of obviously degener- 
ate strains. It may be said, however, that a definite step 
will be taken towards proper selection in the interest of 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 93 

future generations when by a truly democratic system 
of education all the most capable and educable ones, irre- 
spective of artificial handicaps and all incidental condi- 
tions, shall be brought out together into the full light of 
intelligence and power. There will then be a distinctly 
greater likelihood of such voluntary selection as will raise 
the standard of humanity by considerably larger units of 
progress than any which present human resources could 
make possible. 

In those fields of life which include the finer intercourse 
of the citizen of the world with his fellow-men, the rear- 
ing of new generations, and the striving toward the birth 
of a nobler human type, we may look wdth confidence to 
democratic association for prodigious achievements. That 
alliance of individual powers which makes them work 
toward the same end rather than at cross purposes, which 
develops a distinctive cumulative group energy through 
the well-proportioned union of ingredient capabilities, 
which kindles a common impulse of loyalty and adven- 
ture, will certainly not be less fruitful of results in the 
realm of culture than in the realm of industry. Indeed, 
the principle of free association is more dominant and 
productive as life is more complicated and refined. It 
finds greater possibilities of intelligent adjustment and 
of subtle, far-reaching alliances. It can organize that 
emancipated insight and foresight which fixes its gaze, 
not so much upon comparatively crystallized institutions 
intrenched by crude motives, as upon those interests 
which have to do largely with the dirigible forces of the 
future. 

These considerations suggest the inherent moralizing 
effect of association. It has well been said that the moral 
law, to say the least, is the only practicable scheme of 
human intercourse. Every successful attempt to enlarge 



94 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

human intercourse, to make it more varied, more resource- 
ful, involves the bringing to the surface of nascent moral 
capabilities in the persons concerned. Democracy is first 
and last a scheme through which the individual has his 
moral nature enlarged by having new social responsibilities 
laid upon him. The citizen in a democracy must in due 
time develop convolutions in his brain which are not pos- 
sible in the subject of an absolute monarchy. This is 
particularly true as democracy ripens from the rudimen- 
tary stages, when liberty and equality are overemphasized, 
into the stage when it is understood that it is fraternity 
which is the real touchstone of power and progress. 

In any period of moral upheaval and transition there 
is, of course, the danger that some of the established fun- 
damental and permanent foundations of morality will be 
somewhat ignored in the enthusiasm for the creation 
of new, advanced moral sanctions. The present period is 
no exception to the rule. This leads many conservative 
people to feel that the present invasion of our social sys- 
tem by democracy constitutes a grave moral danger. Such 
anxiety, however, has always been felt at every stage of 
history when the human race has marshaled itself morally 
for a forward movement. When one considers how deep 
and universal an upheaval has been involved thus far in 
the incoming of democracy, — how politics, industry, and 
religion have been revolutionized, — the remarkable fact 
is that the foundations of morality have been on the 
whole so little disturbed. For this there are several fun- 
damental reasons. Democracy, not only in its institutions, 
but by its implications, involves nearly every one in a fuller, 
more obvious scheme of ethical constraint and incentive. 
As I have endeavored to show, every new stage of growth 
in democracy is accomplished through a more extensive 
and more intensive coordination, involving in concrete 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 95 

fashion a double moralizing process for everybody con- 
cerned. What is also of great importance, the democratic 
movement in a great variety of ways and to a great 
variety of persons furnishes an inspiration which comes 
from a fresh outlet to the moral imagination. It turns 
many somewhat prosaic duties into opportunities which 
lie straight along the line of personal and social develop- 
ment, so that under the impulse of democracy we find 
many people not affected by conventional moral appeals 
who are moved to spontaneous renunciation for the sake 
of social service. Another exceedingly strong ethical fac- 
tor in the democratic movement lies in the fact that it 
carries with it a reestablished emphasis upon justice and 
the sterner side of the moral law generally. This corrects 
the too sentimental ethical tendencies which go with 
the type of enthusiasm that reaches optimistic views by 
limiting the range of responsibility. 

The new morality of democracy is above all positive 
and actual. Under it the workman finds his path of duty 
in a great loyalty to his fellows, illuminated with clear 
hope of an enlargement of the means of life for the mass 
of men. The employer begins to see himself a social ser- 
vant, bound to render service to society, not only in the 
proceeds of his industry, but in its processes as well, by 
doing justice to his employees and by making honest 
goods at a just price for the public. The professional 
man is moved to give his work a larger scope so as not 
only to include a proportion of charitable duties in a day's 
work, but to make the day's work as a whole advance the 
welfare of the community. This more positive result he 
achieves by bringing his work to bear upon some of the 
social causes which produce the problems with which he 
has to deal. The consumer, finding his life in its full 
economic setting, realizes that the thing which he demands 



96 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the manufacturer is compelled to produce, and that there- 
fore it is his duty and opportunity to demand the results 
of honest work done under fair conditions, and produced 
under a kind of industrial administration that builds up 
the fabric of society rather than rends it asunder. In 
social intercourse there is an increasing motive which 
would prevent the restriction of acquaintance and friend- 
ship to a certain limited and select circle, and w^ould give 
it a wader extension so as to include all sorts and con- 
ditions of men ; because it is coming to be understood 
that every human being has something to learn from 
every other, and something to impart. 

Thus democratic association is in itself a vast plasma 
of human interests. Instead of in any way restricting and 
hardening the issues of life, it provides to the vital im- 
pulse an infinitely varied number of natural, invigorating, 
inspiring outlets. It is simply a larger marking out of the 
possibilities of that higher type of personality which is 
developing through human evolution, an evolution which 
certainly is none the less natural and a part of nature 
because brought out through the action of the human 
mind. Productive as is the mind in these new collec- 
tive instincts and relations wdien they act upon physical 
nature, it is certainly no less full of achievement and 
potency in the action and reaction of personalities upon 
one another, and in the development of the higher ethi- 
cal — that is, the distinctively human — resources of the 
race. 

Measuring the past history of the human race by the 
clear possibilities that lie before it, it may be said that it 
is now perhaps but rising out of its childhood. It is in- 
deed only having the first dawnings of the consciousness 
of itself. It is emerging but a little from the inchoate, 
incoherent state in which its members have been under the 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 97 

illusion that there was something for them in life apart 
from others and the whole of humanity. There are gleams 
of the higher social consciousness from which every im- 
pulse must fall away that does not rest in the oneness of 
mankind. As the race passes beyond its childhood into 
the lucid vision and compacted strength of its youth, the 
now distant hope of healthy, happy, noble life, in widest 
commonalty spread, may well become simply the real and 
satisfying business of daily existence. 

Perhaps the surest ground of confidence that humanity 
is actually passing into this further stage of progress is 
found in the presence of a growing and spreading moral 
dynamic which is essentially new as a social phenomenon. 
There is, in fact, in the movement toward social demo- 
cracy a peculiar sense of mystic power. It brings to the 
ordinary man that strange reassurance of the larger life 
which comes of itself through spending forth one's re- 
sources through channels of loyalty. There is that scat- 
tereth and yet increaseth. A large intensity of service and 
cooperation goes into every one of the bewildering maze 
of human groupings, and is followed by a greater recom- 
pense. Surely there never has been a time when so many 
men in the most frequented ways of life are finding 
that every wholesome overture of man to fellow-men is in 
itself twice blest. 

It has been said that at the heart of democratic associa- 
tion, forming the source of its power, is the peculiar prin- 
ciple by which the whole is more than the sum of the parts. 
The output of two men working together is more than the 
total of what they produce separately. The combination of 
intelligence, the coalescence of wills, is in itself a third 
and compelling factor. This economic surplus value has its 
realizable and its realized counterpart in the relations of 
the inner life. Jesus said to his disciples, " Where two or 



98 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

three care gathered together in my name, there am I in 
the midst of them." Bishop Westcott points out that this 
saying doubtless found some suggestion in the passage in 
the Talmud, " Where two friends are met together to 
study the law, the Shekinah comes and is present with 
them." A surplus value of the spirit, a power not our- 
selves, is evidenced in the process and in the result of 
every fresh extension of active fraternity toward the moral 
upbuilding of society. There is a religious meaning and 
power in association which is unwittingly experienced by 
vast numbers of men and women in these days as they 
go about their ordinary affairs, — a feeling of the reality, 
inevitableness, and fascination of service and fellow^ship ; 
a kindling sense that now, in this day of association with 
all its potency and promise, is the crisis of the world. In 
any estimate of the present meaning of democracy, the 
road which it is to travel, and the length which it is to 
go, this religious afflatus — rising, vaguely understood, but 
soon to be overpowering — must be taken account of 
more deeply than anything else. 

This new spirit, forming itself, as it were, upon the 
restless sea of humanity, will without doubt determine 
the future sense of God and destiny. The deistic con- 
ception of an age now completely past, that God is some 
distant monarch, will fade into the darkness with the 
social system which gave it rise ; and society as a federal 
union, in which each individual and every form of human 
association shall find free and full scope for a more 
abundant life, will be the large figure from w^hich is 
projected the conception of the God in whom we live 
and move and have our being. Under such a concep- 
tion it will be found and felt that at every one of all 
the points in the never-ending complexity of human 
affairs where one life touches another, there is a sacra- 



DEMOCRACY A NEW UNFOLDING OF HUMAN POWER 99 

mental relationship which is being either reverenced or 
defiled. 

The democratic religious motive carries also, as most 
vital to it, that hope and vision of the future which is 
essential to all true religion, that other- worldliness whose 
long perspective corrects and adjusts our foreshortened 
moral sense as to the many subtle ultra-rational ethical 
issues of our daily existence. The Utopia of democracy, 
in its true interpretation different in no principle from 
the Kingdom of God on earth, gathers up into itself all 
the great dreams which have illumined and fired the 
democratic prophets and martyrs, and constitutes in it- 
self one of the deepest sources of power for making 
personality adequate to its present and confident of its 
future, and for bringing on the day when in large out- 
line, at least, the moralization of human society shall be 
complete. 

It adumbrates the coming of humanity into a tran- 
scendent realm of life, into a sphere beyond the region 
of competition ; where each person's life is understood 
to be a thing of value to every other person ; where the 
more any one has, the more every one has ; where per- 
fect freedom shall be found in a perfect equality of 
privilege, wrought out through perfect fraternity ; where 
the individual will be in full knowledge and high purpose 
trained to exercise the complete vocation for which he 
was destined ; and where each generation, by convinced 
and enlightened intention, will pass on blessing rather 
than curse to the succeeding race. 

There goes ^ith this ineffaceable spiritual ideal of de- 
mocracy a triumphant consciousness distilled out of con- 
temporary experience : that as humanity reaches upward 
and onward it finds itself to be apprehended of that which 
it would apprehend ; that above and through and in the 

LOfG. 



100 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

power to which human nature has attained, there are 
vaster energies, working in affinities undreamed of, by 
avenues inconceivable, to sustain and relate all the pro- 
tean diversities of being in a unity that grows toward 
omnipotence. 



IV 

AN ANALYSIS OP THE MORAL JUDGMENT 

Frank Chapman Sharp 

The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of 
the process involved in the formation of the moral judg- 
ment. In the mind of the professional moralist this men- 
tal state is not always quite identical with what it is in 
the mind of the layman in philosophy. To the former it 
may carry all sorts of implications, accretions resulting 
from reflection upon the ultimate significance of moral- 
ity and its place in the universal scheme of things. With 
this adventitious material we shall have nothing to do ; 
neither its nature nor its truth concerns us in the least. 
Our study is psychological in aim and method, and its 
subject-matter is a certain mental process in the form 
which is common to all normal representatives of the 
race. 

Descriptions of the moral judgment fall into two great 
classes, according as the consciousness of obligation or 
the feeling of approbation is conceived to be the ulti- 
mate source of moral distinctions. It is not the primary 
purpose of this paper to present an argument for either 
of these positions, for an honest a;rgument would require 
a survey of the entire field of ethics. Instead of making 
any such futile attempt, I shall begin with the assump- 
tion that the feeling of approbation is the fundamental 
phenomenon of the moral life, and endeavor to exhibit 
the structure of the moral judgment as it appears when 
looked at from this point of view ; leaving it to the course 



102 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

o£ the inquiry itself to supply such evidence for the cor- 
rectness of our starting-point as may naturally offer itself 
in the prosecution of the analysis. 

It may be well to map out in advance the country 
through which we are to pass, as the road must wind, 
and we shall often be in danger of losing sight of the 
whole for the sake of which the part is surveyed. Our 
investigation, then, will fall into three divisions. We shall 
take up first the nature of moral approbation, seeking in 
particular to distinguish it from its genus, approbation. 
We shall then inquire whether the word " right " means 
anything more than that the conduct under review is 
capable of arousing moral approbation. Finally we shall 
analyze the consciousness of moral obligation, and seek 
to show its relation to moral approbation. 

Moral approbation, we shall discover, differs from ap- 
probation in general, not in its emotional content, but in 
its object. This will be defined, in the end, though not 
quite exhaustively, as purposes, where purpose means the 
voluntary determination to bring into existence a certain 
state of things. But not all approbation of purposes, it 
will be shown, can be considered moral approbation. Ap- 
probation of a purpose can be classed as moral only when 
we approve of its adoption by every person similarly sit- 
uated. 

The determination of the nature of moral approbation 
is, however, only the first step towards the definition of 
the word right ; for right, as used by common sense, means 
something more than conformity to the chance approba- 
tions of any and every individual. The application of this 
term to a given purpose must in the first place be consist- 
ent with its application to other purposes. Of two contra- 
dictory moral judgments, only one can be correctly des- 
ignated as right. Thus, at its lowest, right stands for a 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 103 

man's approbations as these are when they have been 
purged of all inconsistencies and are reduced to a harmo- 
nious system. But right seems to me more than this ; it 
marks the approbations of a completely developed mind. 
Common sense assumes that the approbations of all men 
who meet these conditions will be in complete accord. 
Thus the moral judgment always intends to be of universal 
validity; it states not so much its author's spontaneous 
approbations as what he believes to be the approbations 
of those persons whose ideals of conduct form a consistent 
system and are at the same time the expression of a com- 
pletely developed personality. Where this conception of 
the moral judgment is accepted, the facts of obligation 
will fall naturally into their place in the completed whole. 
A word must also be said with regard to the method 
by which our conclusions are obtained. We are inquiring, 
it must be remembered, into the meaning of a term, not 
as it is used in some esoteric sense, but as it is employed 
in every-day life. And we must face the fact at the very 
outset that common sense uses it, as it uses cause, proba- 
bility, self, and a thousand others, with at best an imper- 
fect conception of its meaning. A certain portion of the 
connotation may, at any given time, be more or less dis- 
tinctly apprehended ; the rest will form an inchoate mass. 
The meaning is thus, for the most part, a matter of im- 
plicit apprehension, as Stout calls it. The fact is that 
" the centre of consciousness is not the centre of mental 
life ; " and thus we may use with propriety terms which 
we should find it impossible to define. In such cases the 
method of direct analysis cannot be applied. We must 
gather the connotation from the denotation, the meaning 
from the use. Accordingly our immediate aim will be 
throughout to discover to what objects the adjectives right 
and wrong are applied, in order to extract by so doing the 



104 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

meaning that is logically required to account for the ob- 
served facts. 

I 

The first object of our inquiry must be the nature of 
approbation and disapprobation. " To approve/' we may 
say with Bradley/ "is to have an idea in which we feel 
satisfaction, and to have or to imagine the presence of 
this idea in existence." Approbation as thus defined 
evidently possesses both an intellectual and an emotional 
side, the two forming an organic whole, in which neither 
factor is at bottom more important than the other. Thus 
for the adherents of this view the old dispute, now for- 
tunately tottering toward its well-earned grave, whether 
moral distinctions are grounded upon "reason" or "feel- 
ing," is a meaningless one. The separation of either from 
the other in the judgment of value would be equivalent 
to building a house out of bricks possessing mere form 
or mere matter. One fact and one alone makes the concep- 
tion of approbation as a purely intellectual process plausi- 
ble. The emotional element may at times fade from focal 
consciousness or disappear from the mind entirely. In such 
cases what we call approbation seems to be a belief that 
if certain conditions were not operating to destroy it I 
should feel the satisfaction in question. Such conditions 
might be : the removal of the object said to be approved 
from the perceptual world to the world of imagery, or 
from either to that of bare abstract ideas ; the blunting 
of my powers of feeling through familiarity ; the ex- 
haustion of my emotional capacity through sickness or 
fatigue ; the preoccupation of my mind by anxiety or 
suffering. It should be noted, however, that in all these 
cases the emotional element reappears or at least tends to 
reappear in the form of dissatisfaction the moment that 
1 Appearance and Reality, p. 408. 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 105 

non-realization is threatened. Such an extension of the 
use of approbation is one that we must make for every 
word that signifies the existence of an emotion. Thus 
you may read in a letter written by Jacobi to certain old 
friends : " I am deeply convinced, my good friends, that 
I love you without ceasing ; but I confess that at this 
moment I feel little of it, so cruelly have I been tortured 
to-day and yesterday " [by petty vexations]. We may be- 
lieve accordingly that approbation, properly so called, is 
a state which includes as coordinate elements satisfaction 
and the idea of a state or object as existing. 

Passing to the nature of moral approbation, there seems 
to be no discoverable difference on the emotional side be- 
tween it and other forms of approbation. It may indeed 
be true, as has been urged, that every emotion changes in 
content somewhat according to the character of its object. 
If so, that will hold for the moral world also. But at most 
the change is not greater or more significant here than else- 
where, and it accordingly possesses no special theoretical 
importance. Certain difficulties that stand in the way of 
the acceptance of this statement may best be reserved for 
a later paragraph. 

The differentia sought must accordingly lie in the na- 
ture of the object approved. This, as every one knows, is 
voluntary action. A voluntary act has three elements : 
(1) the volition or determination to bring about certain 
results; (2) the bodily movements in which this volition 
incorporates itself ; and (3) the actual results which follow 
the movement. It is a commonplace that moral judg- 
ment is passed upon the first of these elements — the voli- 
tion — and upon it alone. The volition, in its turn, is 
complex, containing (among other things) two elements 
that we are called upon to distinguish. There is, first, 
the determination to bring about a certain state. There 



106 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

is, second, a set of couvictions with regard to the nature 
of the situation in which the agent is about to act, 
the most important of which is the beHef that a given 
course of action — the bodily movements and their con- 
sequences — will produce the results which it has been 
determined to bring about. The correctness of these con- 
victions is sometimes dependent upon the will of the 
agent. He may, for example, use mistaken means merely 
because he does not care to take the trouble to collect the 
facts, or because he allows the "will to believe " to cloud 
his vision. On the other hand, after the will has done its 
utmost error may still remain. In this case the fault, if 
fault there be, lies with the intellect. Under such circum- 
stances it is obvious that the blame which may attach to 
the person is not moral blame. If, for instance, the 
executor of an estate makes an investment in behalf of 
the heirs wiiich, after he has used due diligence, appears 
to him a safe one, we do not accuse him of having com- 
mitted a wrong, however badly it may turn out, even 
though another man of more ability or with more com- 
plete information could have seen from the first that dis- 
aster was inevitable. Moral judgment, then, concerns itself 
with only one of the elements in a volition, namely the 
end that the agent aims to bring about. The aim, of 
course, must be a genuine one. The vague idea that we 
might perhaps some time or other perform the action in 
question has, as we all know, little or no moral value. 
What we demand is the adoption of the end by the in- 
dividual in such a fashion that action wdll inevitably 
follow unless prevented by circumstances outside of his 
control. This end, adopted and made its own by the self, 
we may call a purpose. Moral approbation difPerentiates 
itself from approbation in general in that it is directed to 
j:)ur poses. 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 107 

In so far as this proposition has not met with unreserved 
acceptance it is because of certain facts which have given 
rise to the distinction between so-called formal and ma- 
terial rightness. These facts, however, when properly 
considered, do not justify us in supposing that we have 
two kinds of rightness on our hands. Let us examine, for 
instance, the conventional illustration, theological perse- 
cution. Many a black-hooded priest thought only of sav- 
ing: thousands from an eternal fire when he condemned 
some little knot of heretics to the flames that perish as 
they rise; or he took the existence of unorthodox opinions 
as evidence of secret corruption of heart, which as much 
deserved punishment as murder or treason. Obviously in 
so far as this description is correct the formal rightness 
which it represents differs in no way from rightness as 
already defined. A purpose has been adopted which can- 
not possibly be called other than moral. But his act, it 
will be urged, was "materially" wrong. What can this 
mean but that the situation was incorrectly viewed ? The 
fault in him, if fault it was, lay in the intellect, assuming 
of course the exercise of proper care on his part in the 
formation of his conclusion, and the absence of impure 
motives that might cloud his vision. The case is thus 
an exact duplicate of the executor in the preceding para- 
graph, and the principle which applies to one accordingly 
applies to the other. You may call the conduct in both 
instances, if you will, materially wrong. But if you do, 
you must not fail to recognize that whereas wrong is 
originally and properly an adjective expressing moral 
blame, it is here used to mark condemnation of extra- 
moral factors. 

The occasional denial, then, that the purpose, as here 
defined, is the sole object of the moral judgment turns out 
to be really little more than a verbal one. The same may 



108 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

be said of the divergent answers given to the question : 
Is it the intention as a whole or the motives therein im- 
bedded that determines the moral character of the pur- 
pose ? If we will but ignore idiosyncrasies of terminology 
and penetrate to the thought that is seeking expression, 
we shall find, I believe, among living moralists complete 
harmony of opinion on this subject, at least as far as 
fundamentals are concerned. If by the intention of a 
voluntary act we agree to mean the totality of its foreseen 
consequences, and by motive, any end the thought of 
which tends to move to action, then we may assert that 
in the moral judgment the object of immediate considera- 
tion is the intention, — the intention in all its parts. But 
what we are ultimately concerned with is the motives dis- 
closed in it; not merely, however, those that prevail and 
issue in action, but those also that, not having strength 
enough to determine the nature of the event, are sup- 
pressed and so fail to appear. As Bentham pointed out, 
when a man violates a trust, the motive, the prospect of 
gaining money, is innocent enough ; the trouble lies in 
the fact that certain other motives failed to control it in 
this instance. The object of the moral judgment, in other 
words, is the system of a man's desires, in so far as they 
are called for by a given situation, considered in respect 
of their power to determine action. 

On this point, then, contemporary students of ethics 
are apparently in entire accord. Their conclusion seems 
to me unassailable, as far as it goes. But if we would 
understand the actual movements of e very-day judgments, 
we must make a distinction which the above formula ig- 
nores. We must distinguish, namely, between those desires 
whose object is a certain state as such, and those whose 
object is this state considered as a good. It is no, more 
true that every voluntary act has as its motive the good 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 109 

of self or another than it is that every such act is done 
for the pleasure it promises to afford. A man who ( in the 
classic words of d' Alembert's foster-mother ) makes him- 
self miserable while he is alive in order that people may 
talk about him after he is dead, or a man who starves 
himself and endures cold and disease that he may save 
money enough to be buried in a grave of his own, is 
no more aiming at a state which when it arrives will be 
recognized as good than at one which will be recognized 
as pleasant. Similarly the person who insists upon inter- 
rupting our study in order to read us extracts from the 
newspaper in his hand is ordinarily not acting with a view 
to our good, nor is he aiming to attain a good for himself 
at the cost of our own ; he is simply exploding. Neverthe- 
less in every one of these cases the action may be volun- 
tary. An idea, then, of a certain state whether of self or 
another or, apparently, of the material world about me, 
may arouse the desire for its realization, apart from any 
consideration of the benefit that will accrue to me or any 
one else from its realization. By the side of such desires 
exists that desire for our own good and for the good of 
others which, when it operates, makes us face the preced- 
ing class of desires with a cui bono ? and tends to guide 
our actions with reference to the answer. Of course our 
desire for the good as such is not a desire for a content 
utterly apart from our other desires, something to be 
placed by the side of the desire to attend a concert, to be 
spoken well of by our friends, and to know something of 
the structure of the atom. On the contrary, it derives 
its whole content from these. It is, in a word, a desire 
for any state in so far as we believe it will be recogniza- 
ble upon its attainment as a satisfactory state to be in. 
"Naught's had, all's spent, when our desire is got without 
content." This may be the cry, not merely of one who. 



110 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

while possessing the shadow, has failed to grasp the sub- 
stance because deceived in his estimates, but also of one 
who, fascinated by the former, has never stopped to give 
a thought to the latter. 

It is to this second class of desires — which I shall desisf- 
nate as criticised — that common sense tends to confine 
its moral judgments, treating the non-criticised as non- 
moral. As far as it does so it conforms to the well-known 
principle that the object of the moral judgment is char- 
acter. For character is not, as is often supposed, a mere 
name for the system of a man's desires. Whether he is 
or is not fond of power, or praise, or poetry, or an agri- 
cultural life, or the pleasures of the table, or the con- 
versation of friends, does not determine his moral status. 
His character is exhibited in his attitude towards good 
and evil recognized as such. If any one doubts this state- 
ment, let him study the difficulties in which able men like 
Stephen and Alexander have involved themselves by ig- 
noring this fact. Then let him examine with care the 
machinery with which it has been proposed to lift them 
out of the boof. Whoever will take the trouble to do this 
will, I believe, find himself forced to the conclusion that 
the definition proposed is the only one that will permit 
us to distinguish between mere tastes or temperament on 
the one hand and character on the other. 

It must at once be confessed, however, that common 
sense does not hold fast consistently to the point of view 
that character, as thus conceived, is the sole object of the 
moral judgment. On the other hand, its procedure in this 
matter is not absolutely arbitrary. It follows — of course 
without explicit awareness of the fact — certain clearly 
definable laws. What these laws are it is impossible in 
this place to consider. That would involve an examina- 
tion of the standards of approbation employed by com- 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 111 

mon sense, and any proper presentation of this subject 
would carry us far beyond the bounds set for this paper. 
It must suffice for our present purpose if the object of 
the moral judgment has been so far formulated as to ena- 
ble us to separate, even though incompletely, moral ap- 
probation from the larger phenomenon of approbation in 
general. And since we cannot carry the distinction out 
to the very end, I shall in the rest of the paper fall back 
to our first position, and speak of purposes as the object 
of the moral judgment. 

Summarizing, then, we may assert that moral approba- 
tion is distinguished from approbation in general, not by 
its emotional quality, but by its object, and that this 
object is our purposes, or more definitely, the system of 
desires revealed in our purposes. 

Many moralists seem to suppose the definition of moral 
approbation as that of which the object is a purpose, to be 
a sufficient one. It is, however, easy to shoAv that this is 
not the case. If the lawyer for the defense makes a great 
effort to win the case against me, the lawyer for the plain- 
tiff, I shall from one point of view disapprove his indus- 
try, his pertinacity, and his loyalty to his client, but I shall 
not for that reason consider them immoral. That is to say, 
an injury is not necessarily a wrong. Again, if a father 
steals so much money that he can give his son a liberal 
allowance, the son may possibly approve his father's ac- 
tions, but no one would call that moral approbation. Sim- 
ilarly with regard to self. Every voluntary action is from 
some point of view approved by the agent, and is approved 
on the whole, under the conditions, at the moment of 
action, else were it not voluntary. Yet it is possible to do 
deliberately an act known at the time to be wrong. 

The reason why such obvious facts are ever ignored is 
the existence of unduly simple notions of the nature of 



112 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the standards used by common sense. Thus "the greatest 
happiness of the greatest number" has been considered 
the actual standard used in every-day life for marking 
actions as right or wrong. If considered as the sole 
or even the prevailing standard, no idea could be more 
absurd. To say nothing of the moral judgments based 
upon criteria which have no necessary relation to wel- 
fare, as the aesthetic, most persons believe that it is the 
duty of a man to provide for his family first, even if the 
happiness of "the greatest number" is thereby consid- 
erably diminished. Objective morality, to be sure, may 
demand a quite different attitude. But the morality we 
are studying certainly contains any number of such 
judgments. Undue simplicity of definition is responsible 
for the same blindness in the case of another group of 
moralists, — those who hold that the standard used by 
common sense is always the true good of the agent. 
This account does as much violence to the facts as the 
former one. For the judgments of common sense con- 
sist, to an extent which no theory can afford to neglect, 
in a balancing against one another of what the agent 
believes to be the interests of a variety of persons having 
claims upon him of varying degrees of imperativeness, 
of which number the agent reckons himself to be but 
one. The significance of this fact is slurred over by the 
convenient assumption that the true good of all outside 
of self is consistent with the true good of the agent. 
But this assumption is of no avail, for — whether it 
be true or false — it is not usually made by common 
sense, as is witnessed by the most diverse facts, from 
the attitude taken towards the problem of Job to the 
arguments advanced for the necessity of a penal code. 
Our over-hasty moralists have simply assumed that com- 
mon sense looks out upon the world of conduct through 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 113 

the same glasses which they themselves wear; in other 
words, they have been guilty at bottom of the " psycholo- 
gist's fallacy." 

Wherein moral approbation differs from the one-sided 
approbation of the illustrations which introduced this 
discussion will appear if we note that what we consider 
right for one person, that we consider right for every one 
else under the same conditions. The conditions include, 
not merely the demands of the situation as they appear 
to the agent, but also ability on his part to meet these 
demands ; ability itself including the time and physical 
energy at one's disposal, besides much else that requires 
no special mention. We call an aim right, accordingly, 
when we approve of every one adopting it under the 
same conditions; we call it wrong when we disapprove of 
any one adopting it under the conditions ; and we consider 
it morally indifferent or innocent when we do not care 
whether people adopt it or not under the conditions. 
"Every one" of course includes self, though obviously 
in the case of self — and for that matter in the case of 
one's family and friends — other considerations may enter 
which make us disapprove it also. 

The word " same" in the above formula should occasion 
no difficulty. It here means, of course, essentially the 
same, and this means that differences are irrelevant. If, 
for instance, it is an admitted aim of morality to preserve 
the conditions which make possible an industrial society 
founded upon personal property, then when opportunity 
offers to enrich one's self by forging a note, differences of 
need, to say nothing of differences of ability, will be held 
to be irrelevant. It should be noticed also that the for- 
mula as it stands leaves room for any amount of variety. 
When differences in needs, talents, tastes, personal rela- 
tionships, etc., make us approve of different modes of 



114 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

realizing' the ideal, then it will demand different modes 
of activity. Thus the maxim, '' Be unique, even as your 
Father in Heaven is unique," is capable of universaliza- 
tion as truly as the opposite and equally important one, 
" Fulfill without evasion those commonplace duties which 
are laid equally upon all men." We seem, then, to have 
reached a conclusion neither narrow nor empty w'hen we 
declare right to be definable as that which the person 
judging approves of every one aiming at under the same 
conditions. In other words, moral approbation is differ- 
entiated from other forms of approbation by the fact (1) 
that it is directed to purposes, (2) that its grounds are 
such that they apply equally to any one and every one 
who may be called upon to act in the same situation. 

Readers of " The Methods of Ethics " will recognize in 
our definition one of the three axioms which Professor 
Sidgwick believed could be used for the foundation of a 
renovated intuitionism.^ When we consider the important 
place occupied in our actual judgments by the principle 
that " whatever action any of us judges to be right for 
himseK he implicitly judges to be right for all similar 
persons under similar circumstances," we must conclude, 
I think, that but two alternatives are open : we must 
either, with Sidgwick, look upon it as an axiom intu- 
ited by reason, or as merely an account of what we mean 
by the term right. Those who have learned to be suspi- 
cious of intuitions in ethics mil not find it difficult to 
choose between these alternatives. 

Certain objections to our definition will readily occur 
to every one. It may be urged in the first place that we 
do not want any one to throw his money away, yet when 
others are not obviously injured thereby, common sense 
does not ordinarily consider it immoral. The answer is 

* The Methods of Ethics, bk. iii, ch. xiii, sec. 3. 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 115 

that common sense does tend to recognize, though some- 
what hesitatingly and intermittently, a duty to self, and 
it is probable (though this, as far as I know, has never 
been demonstrated) that just those who are concerned at 
seeing a man waste his money are the persons who would 
consider it wrong. At all events we may say with much 
confidence that they would tend to do so, the tendency 
being prevented from becoming fact only by misunder? 
standings or by abstract thinking. 

Again it may be argued that we do not want any one 
to air too much his own exploits, yet we can hardly go to 
the length of calling such exhibitions of vanity immoral. 
The clue to the proper answer is given by the words " ex- 
hibitions of vanity." There is of course nothing wTong 
— ordinarily at least — in the aim to make known your 
own exploits. But the emotion which prompts to the 
adoption of that aim is one which for obvious reasons we 
dislike. Thus the person criticised is disliked for a certain 
emotional endowment and not for the aim of his action, 
which, as long as it is not directed to humiliating his hear- 
ers, may well be innocent enough. The man, in a word, 
lacks "perfection," to use Alexander's term,^ not morality. 

Finally it may be objected that there are a great many 
offensive actions, such as sucking soup from the spoon, 
which we want no one to perform, but which we never- 
theless should not think of considering wrong. The an- 
swer is plain. What I object to is the man's eating as he 
does in my presence, or at most in the presence of those 
to whom it is disgusting. And I do not blame the man 
unless I believe him aware that his action is or may be 
annoying or disgusting. In the latter case, however, he 
is an object of moral blame, — he has committed an 
offense against la petite morale. And if we should still 

1 Moral Order and Progress, p. 27. 



116 STUDIES IN PI^ILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

disapprove of liiin, as some people would, if he were able 
to eat in this manner when quite alone, the object of 
our disapprobation would not be his desires, clearly not 
his criticised desires, — either those he has or those he 
lacks, — but his tastes. 

The same principle holds for the case discussed by 
Dr. Johnson. Boswell having inquired what he thought 
of a bishop who went occasionally to a tavern to drink his 
wine. Dr. Johnson repHed : " It is not immoral ; neither 
would it be for him to whip a top in Grosvenor Square ; 
[but] if he did I hope the boys would fall upon him and 
apply the whip to lihn. There are gradations in conduct ; 
there is morality, decency, propriety." ^ A bishop who 
should whip his top in a public square would be criticised 
because he still enjoyed childish things. That is to say, 
he would be criticised for his tastes. And if a reproba- 
tion more serious should ever make itself felt, it would 
be directed against the implied weakness of will or per- 
haps the carelessness as to his influence involved in the 
pursuit of amusements which were bound to call forth 
the criticism of his fellow-citizens. In themselves con- 
sidered, then, judgments of decency and propriety, even 
when universal, lie outside of morality because directed 
upon an object other than purposes. 

We may summarize the results thus far obtained as 
follows : Moral approbation is simply approbation, as de- 
lined on page 104, directed to certain purposes or aims. A 
purpose is morally approved when it is such that, placing 
ourselves in imagination in a social order large or small, 
we wish every member to make it his own under the 
given conditions. 

It may be useful to compare this definition with some 
others which share its assumption with regard to the fun- 
' Boswell's Life of Johnson^ Hill's edition, vol. iv, p. 87. 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 117 

damental place of approbation in the moral judgment. 
The first may be formulated so as to read, Eight is that 
which every one wants. This definition, however, is 
ambiguous. It may mean, in the first place. Right is 
a name for that conduct which I like and which at the 
same time I find every one else within the range of my 
mental vision likes. This view seems easy to refute. For 
if there is anything certain in this subject of ethics it is 
that, while I may hesitate to pronounce an action right, 
just as I may hesitate to pronounce a statement true, un- 
til I have discovered what attitude others take toward it, 
nevertheless this attitude on the part of others no more 
enters into the meaning of the term in the first case than 
in the second. Take the question now much debated in 
the newspapers. May a man with cancer hasten his death 
by poison ? Answer it either way you please. It will still 
remain true that when you judge one course or the other 
right you are not registering a guess as to what every 
one, or the majority, wants done in the premises. Other- 
wise its rightness could be settled by a referendum. But 
in the second place the definition of right as that which 
every one wants may mean, as it does, for instance, with 
Clifford, Right conduct is such action as would be profit- 
able to, in the sense of serving the egoistic interests of, 
every one beside the agent. This theory seems to me to 
stand in almost as glaring contradiction to plain facts as 
the preceding one. For every moral judgment of com- 
mon sense, with only most sporadic and easily explain- 
able exceptions, permits some scope to the interests — I 
mean the egoistic interests — of the agent himself. In- 
deed the entire tendency of common sense is decidedly in 
the direction of granting them too much rather than too 
little consideration. And when the boundary line has 
been crossed that separates the permissible from the for- 



lis STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AXD PSYCHOLOGY 

bidden, it is not from the selfish that condemnation first 
comes, even when their own interests are deeply affected. 
They may indeed express resentment, as an antocrat may 
strike the bearer of bad news. But the gnilty do not 
necessarily fall in their estimation. It is primarily the 
unselfish that blame the selfish. This is well shown in 
the followino' account of the after-effects of a bio- minino; 
swindle in a Nevada mining camj) : '^ Once more the mul- 
titude had been duped and fleeced, once more the few 
emerged gorged with iniquitous gains. But though curses 
loud and deep were showered upon the heads of the suc- 
cessful swindlers, they lost no caste by what they had 
done. How could they, indeed, when every man felt in his 
heart that he would have played the same game had he 
held the same cards? " ^ Every reader will remember the 
reception given to Mr. Croker's words, " Working for 
my pocket ? Of course I am, all the time, just the same 
as you." I conclude, then, that neither interpretation of 
the formula under discussion can be accepted. And I am 
inclined to attribute such vogue as it at present enjoys to 
the ambio^uities which throw a mantle over its failino^s. 

A second definition is often met among those who look 
upon approbation as the source of moral distinctions. 
According to it, right is not so much what every one 
wants as what I want most. If this definition were correct 
we should find right used by many persons as an adjec- 
tive not of purposes but of intellectual, temperamental, or 
other characteristics of personality. For it is certain that 
not every one looks upon morality as the most important 
element of life. Countless numbers of persons, in their 
heart of liearts, would rather be clever than upright, 
would rather have their children grow up shrewd than 
good, and would rather live in a bad than in a stupid 

1 G. T. Parsons in the Atlantic, vol. xl, p. 159. 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 119 

community. The thing which most attracts them is in- 
tellectual strength. Others, again, are like Flaubert, for 
whom there was '^ nothing in the world except beautiful 
verses, well turned, harmonious, resonant phrases, glori- 
ous sunsets, moonlight, paintuags, antique marbles, and 
shapely heads. Beyond that, nothing." Yet these per- 
sons use the terms right and wrong in exactly the same 
sense that every one else does. Nor does right mean what 
the majority care most about. An entire society, like 
that of the Italian Renaissance, may lose to a very con- 
siderable degree its sense for moral values, while yet the 
meaning of right remains the same for them that it is 
for others. Nor can we conceive of any shifting in our 
sense of values that should set us calling stupidity wrong. 
There are as a matter of fact many personal excellences 
{aperai) which are the object of approbation, — intellec- 
tual excellences, temperamental excellences, excellences 
of taste, and excellences of character. To the exhibition 
of these last w^e give the name moral ; and we shall con- 
tinue to do so while the language remains what it is, 
without plaguing ourselves with the inquiry as to which 
set of excellences is most valued by the majority or by 
ourselves. To say that they are called moral because 
important is like saying that the city whose centre is the 
Island of Manhattan is called New York because it is 
the commercial metropolis of the United States. 

The same error lies at the foundation of both of the 
preceding definitions. They rest upon the failure to keep 
clearly in mind what the object of the moral judgment is. 
This, as we have seen, is everywhere acknowledged to be 
not results but purposes. Yet because of the ambiguities 
of every-day speech, taken up as they are into many moral 
systems by the adoption of the terminology, formal and 
material rightness, this point of view is often difficult to 



120 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

keep before the attention. As long as results are thought 
of as the object of moral evaluation, either of the preced- 
ing definitions possesses a certain plausibility. It might 
be alleged, for instance, that even the most narrow- 
minded worshiper of cleverness wants his banker to keep 
his hands off the money intrusted to his care, more than 
he wants anything else in the world. Even if we granted 
this, however, for the sake of argument, it would avail 
nothing. For the question is, not what value does he at- 
tach to this or that result, but what value does he attach 
to character ? and if he does not value this above every- 
thing else, does he apply the adjectives right and wrong 
to other things than its exhibitions? 

On an entirely different footing, as it seems to me, 
stands the famous definition of Adam Smith, according 
to which moral approbation is the approbation of the 
impartial spectator. At all events, interpreted in a cer- 
tain way, it does not differ fundamentally from my own. 
I must now attempt to show why I prefer the formula I 
have proposed to that which carries with it the prestige 
of his great name. 

In the first place, it is in no mere spirit of carping criti- 
cism that I reject the term "spectator, " together with its 
implications. In Adam Smith's theory the term is an 
appropriate one. According to him the moral endowment 
of man consists in the capacity to mirror, more or less 
perfectly, the pleasures, the pains, and the emotions of 
others, together with an enjoyment in the perceived simi- 
larity between the object reflected and its reflection in 
the mind. What he calls moral approbation is the plea- 
sure arising from the discovery of a similarity between 
these various images and their corresponding objects. But 
no theory for which this conception is not fundamental 
can consider the term spectator an adequate expression of 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 121 

the facts. This appears most conclusively when it is ap- 
pHed to self-judgment. Self -judgment, for him, must in- 
volve a mirroring of the picture contained in the mirror 
which is reflecting our conduct. For a theory like the 
one which is here presented moral self-criticism is a very 
different affair. We find in ourselves certain ideals the 
universal adoption of which we desire. When we act 
according to their dictates we morally approve our own 
acts. Of course we cannot approve without seeing, or 
rather knowing, the thing that we approve. But the 
seeing, in the present theory, is not the characteristic 
feature. At most the moral judgment could be defined 
as the judgment of the impartial approver. 

The impartiality, in its turn, is of a special kind, which 
requires more exact definition. Some forms of partiality 
are admitted by common sense as perfectly legitimate un- 
der certain circumstances. In matters of ^^benevolence" 
many of its best representatives — though by no means all 
— believe that a man owes more to his family than to 
strangers; many that he owes a greater duty to himself 
than to any one else. On the other hand in such matters as 
respect for promises, for the truth, for property, no such 
distinction is commonly made. The impartiality demanded 
of the moral judge is rather to be defined as consistency. 
Yet consistency in itself is no solution, for there can be 
no such thing except as there is some principle which is to 
be carried out without contradiction. This principle is no 
other than that already quoted : " Whatever action any 
of us judges to be right for himself he implicitly judges 
to be right for all similar persons under similar circum- 
stances.^ The nature of the principle, and with it the 
kind of impartiality demanded, seems to find its most ade- 
quate expression in the formula which I have offered. 
1 See above, p. 113. 



122 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

There is a third objection to Adam Smith's definition. 
In his own theory the impartial spectator occupies a nat- 
ural and legitimate place. We see how he came there. 
But in the theories of those who reject most of Smith's 
premises while retaining his definition of moral appro- 
bation, the impartial spectator seems to have no logical 
standing-room. He does not seem to be a necessary or 
even a natural consequence of the premises with which 
we started. He drops down upon the stage like a deus ex 
machbia. I venture to think our own formula avoids this 
dif&culty. We start with the assertion that we have, in 
the beginning, certain desires. We see some persons ac- 
tuated by these desires, others not. In time the question. 
What desires do I wish should rule universally under 
any given set of conditions? cannot but present itself 
to the mind. When it is answered, we have formed a 
moral judgment. The moral judgment thus follows neces- 
sarily from the fact that we have desires which concern 
themselves with human purposes. 

The scope of this criticism should not be misunderstood. 
The definition rejected points to a very important truth, 
a truth often ignored in these latter days. Moral appro- 
bation, it may teach us, differs from other approbation of 
purposes in that it is approbation abstracted from the 
accidental relation of the conduct in question to self, 
whether as agent or patient. He who accepts Adam 
Smith's theory of the moral sentiments in its essentials 
will find in the term " impartial spectator " an adequate 
expression of this fact. But those who reject the greater 
part of the theory, as apparently w^e all do to-day, in 
adopting this phrase make the mistake of those who pour 
new wine into old bottles. 

Before leaving the subject of the nature of moral appro- 
bation and disapprobation, a few words must be added 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 123 

about their normal accompaniment, moral thankfulness 
and indignation. Fusing with the emotions that give 
them life, these highly flavored condiments produce, when 
present in their complete potency, a whole that differs in 
quality so markedly from the bare satisfaction or dissat- 
isfaction itseK that we cannot be surprised when some 
moralists treat the resultant as a unique emotion. It is 
these emotions also .that are largely responsible for the 
warmth of our feehng towards the good and the bad man 
respectively, and tempt us at times to agree wholly with 
Schiller's maxim, "Base men pay with what they do, 
good men with what they are." Evidently no account of 
the moral judgment is complete that omits these elements 
from its description. 

The pedigree of moral thankfulness and indignation is 
worthy of a moment's attention. There can be no ques- 
tion, it seems to me, that they do not differ in nature from 
the gratitude and resentment that tend to follow all ap- 
probation and disapprobation, indeed all pleasurable and 
painful states, whether their exciting cause be conscious 
beings or inanimate objects. They are indeed often 
treated as the primary phenomena, and the outgoings of 
gratitude and resentment on the lower plane are explained 
as the result of a process of personification. But this 
does not account for the fact that an adult, a member of 
a civilized race, in full possession of all his faculties, may 
give his knotted fish-line a vicious jerk, or kick the door 
that slams in his face. The tendency of resentment and 
gratitude to rise on our being displeased or pleased seems 
to be an ultimate characteristic of mind, and the real 
problem therefore is. How do some of us come to confine 
them as successfully as we do to the volitional element in 
the life of conscious beings ? 

If our position be true, these pungent emotions which. 



124 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

fusing with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction from which 
they spring, give them most of their character and much 
of their motive force, do not rise miraculously when the 
mind first takes note of the character of volitions ; they 
are the normal accompaniments of approbation from the 
beginning. Furthermore, intense and voluminous though 
they be, and capable thus of submerging the individuality 
of that to which they owe their life, ^hey are nevertheless 
parasitic in nature. This fact is overlooked by those who, 
like Westermarck, make moral indignation and thankful- 
ness the fundamental phenomena of the moral life. Such 
writers begin to build their ethical theories at the second 
story. 

We have attempted thus far to exhibit two facts : 
(1) the nature of the emotion of moral approbation, and 
(2), in so far as was necessary for our purpose, the nature 
of the object which calls it forth. In so doing we have 
but completed the first half of our task. It remains to 
assign to moral approbation its place in the connotation 
of the word right. 

II 

Many of those who look upon moral approbation as the 
fundamental fact of the moral life hold that right means 
nothing more than the conduct of which I approve ; and 
this has been heralded by friend and foe alike as the only 
possible outcome of such a view. But however completely 
we may seem to be shut up to that conclusion, this is 
assuredly not the meaning which common sense attaches 
to the term. In the controversies about social and political 
rights, as, for example, concerning the limits of freedom 
of contract, the right of a man to do what he wills with 
"his own," the right of self-government, the existence of 
moral claims as between nations, the discussion does not 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 125 

aim to bring out what the parties to the controversy hke; 
it seeks to discover what is right. And in such matters 
as the extent of the fundamental rights and duties the 
question is not resolvable into one concerning the means 
of reaching an end accepted by all parties to the contro- 
versy. The proposal of certain socialists to get rid of the 
English debt by repudiation, or of the followers of Henry 
George that the government should take possession of 
the land without compensating its present owners for 
the "unearned increment," — these are indeed sometimes 
discussed on the basis of what will pay the majority of 
the community in the long run. But the question of the 
validity of rival claims is always at bottom a matter of 
ends, not means ; and the assumption that there is some- 
thing which is right in these things, whatever may be 
the likes of reader or writer, pervades all serious discus- 
sions of such problems. The same truth holds for the 
sphere of so-called private morality. What is the duty 
of a man who is compelled to choose between the life of 
his child who is playing upon the track in front of his 
house and the lives of hundreds of passengers in a train 
rushing towards an open switch? May a man revenge 
himself upon one who has destroyed his home, or made 
him a beggar by wrecking his business? Here again 
are questions of principle, not of means to an accepted 
end. When a man declares one or the other of these 
alternatives right, he means something more than that the 
alternative in question is one he would prefer to see 
chosen. If easily aroused to indignation by the sight of 
suffering caused by greed, he may perhaps be heard to 
say, I hope the victim will revenge himself, though I ad- 
mit I do not think revenge is right. If he finds his neigh- 
bor preferring the course opposite to that which he ap- 
proves, he does not think of declaring both to be right. 



126 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

Indeed the fact that common sense uses the word right to 
mean something more than its actual approbations is so 
obvious that it can be denied only by those who, for one 
reason or another, hold that nothing can be found corre- 
sponding to such a conception. In the face of this pre- 
possession I can only insist that even if the premise be 
true the conclusion does not follow. And the premise 
itself ought not to be granted till every other alternative 
has been shown to end in a blind alley. It may be worth 
our while, then, since we have been forced into this an- 
cient controversy, to inquire whether any meaning can be 
attached to the word right as used every day by common 
sense. 

As heretofore, our method of investigation will consist 
in nothing more recondite than a careful scrutiny of the 
meaning of the word under consideration as this appears 
from its use. We may start from a fact about which there 
can be no dispute. At its lowest, right means for common 
sense not my approbations as they stand, but these appro- 
bations as they would be if purged of all inconsistencies 
and reduced to a harmonious system. Give a number of 
persons the question, Should a father, compelled to choose 
between the life of his child and the lives of a train-load 
of people, save the latter ? Give the same persons the 
question discussed by Grotius, " May an innocent citi- 
zen be delivered into the hands of the enemy in order to 
save the state or the city?" You will find some who an- 
swer " Yes " to the first and " No " to the second. Ask 
these whether both answers can be correct. They will of 
course reply — as every one knows who is not blinded by 
preconceived theories — either that there is a difference 
between the two cases, or else that one of their answers 
is incorrect. 

Inconsistencies in moral judgments may be due to sev- 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 127 

eral causes. The most obvious is the influence of pass- 
ing moods. After a good dinner, eaten in company with 
agreeable friends, a man, feeling at peace with the whole 
world, might think with satisfaction of loving all his 
fellow-men, including even his worst enemies. The next 
day, hungry and tired and harassed by a variety of vexa- 
tions and disappointments, he might repudiate the bare sug- 
gestion of such a possibility. A second cause is the blinding 
influence of habitual modes of thought or feeling, of pre- 
judice, and of self-love. For of all forms of love, self-love 
is most completely blind. King David killed his loyal sub- 
ject, Uriah, and took Bathsheba to be his wife, without a 
qualm. But when the prophet told him the story of the 
rich man and his poor neighbor, the scales fell from his 
eyes, and he saw he had done what he otherwise abhorred. 
In all such cases what a man considers his moral judg- 
ment is, at the lowest count, the expression of his deepest, 
most firmly rooted approbations. 

The dull insensibility produced by habit, or custom, or 
any of the other of life's narcotics, may be destroyed 
when we either see or, for any reason, become able to re- 
alize in imagination the outgoings of our purposes in the 
lives of others. Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace writes that 
he used to shoot monkeys with no more feeling than if 
he were shooting at a target, till one day he witnessed the 
grief of a mother monkey as she held in her arms the 
dead body of her child killed by him. Thereafter every 
monkey was safe from his gun. Similarly a man has been 
known to oppress remorselessly the poor until cu'cum- 
stances forced him into some close relation with the lives 
of certain of his victims. Thereupon what was once done 
without compunction became intolerable. Evidently each 
of these men in the presence of a new situation formed a 
new moral judgment that became a permanent part of the 



128 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

furniture of the mind. Certain latent capacities for feel- 
ing were aroused in them, of the existence of which they 
had hitherto not dreamed. Had they, however, before 
these incidents, been permitted to look into the future, 
I believe they would have considered the judgments of 
the present self, with its recognized narrowness of vision 
and dullness of feeling, erroneous in comparison with 
those of the more highly developed self. If so, right 
means not the harmonized approbations of my surface self, 
so to speak; it means rather the consistent system of 
my approbations when all my capacities and latent powers 
have been developed to their maximum. When a man, 
after the fashion of most men, declares conduct right or 
wrong according to the ideals of his present and often 
superficial self, this is not because, for him, right means 
that which fits into the system of his actual approbations, 
bijt because he supposes no further development could 
make him look at and feel about the facts in an essentially 
different way. 

So far, then, it seems to me, we can proceed with secu- 
rity ; and at all events, as far as we go we are unencum- 
bered with assumptions. We have been simply analyzing 
the shape that our approbations must take before we apply 
to their object the adjective right. The further position, 
however, that right is something which is valid for every 
one, involves the assumption that when all men have reached 
complete development and have reduced their moral judg- 
ments to a consistent system, these judgments will agree. 
That common sense does implicitly make this assumption 
has already been asserted. We find people (if I may re- 
peat) engaging in controversy upon matters of principle, 
as well as upon the application of mutually accepted prin- 
ciples. This controversy takes the form, to a great extent, 
of pointing out contradictions in the judgments of the 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 129 

opponent ; or it asserts that if circumstances had awakened 
the mind to the reahzation of certain facts the attitude 
under criticism would have been an entirely different one. 
Throughout the argument it is taken for granted that an 
agreement between the parties to the controversy is pos- 
sible, or at least would be possible if they could but meet 
with the same experiences. 

The question whether the mind of man can be made 
to yield a harmonious system of moral approbations in 
the manner suggested is irrelevant to a strictly psycho- 
logical inquiry. For this reason, and for other reasons 
equally good, I do not mean to consider it in this place. 
One objection, however, demands consideration, since to 
ignore it might prejudice the entire case. Criminal psy- 
chology seems to have established the existence of a 
type of man which it calls the moral imbecile. The 
extreme representative of this type feels no remorse for 
his own past crimes, however monstrous, and looks with 
equanimity upon the commission of future ones. He may 
rage like a wild beast at those who injure him; but he 
rages impartially at his fellow criminal who sells him out 
and at the humane judge who gives him every oppor- 
tunity to clear himself if he can. For neither party does 
he feel moral condemnation; the man who betrays him 
does not sink in his eyes. The approbations of these 
monsters are singularly consistent, and they apparently 
have no latent powers that experience could awaken or 
develop. Are not their judgments upon conduct, then, 
according to our description, entitled to the name of the 
objectively right ? The answer is simple. Not all appro- 
bation directed to purposes is moral approbation. We 
enter the sphere of morality when we become capable of 
condemning or approving conduct in its universal aspects, 
when, as has been said above, we have ideals that concern 



130 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

themselves with the purposes of all who are placed in a 
given situation. Such approbations the moral imbecile 
does not possess ; in their place is blank indifference as to 
what the world does, except as his egoistic interests are 
directly affected. His judgments accordingly are not even 
moral ; much less can they be called objectively moral. 
If, then, the moral judgments of men are to be woven into 
a harmonious whole, the men must be able to contribute 
moral judgments to serve as material out of which to 
work up the completed fabric. 

A further question is sure to be raised : Can the so- 
lution of the problem of objectivity here offered hope 
to find favor with those moralists who have most vigor- 
ously insisted in the past upon such objectivity ? Will it 
satisfy their needs as their own theories appear to have 
done? While, in my opinion, any reply that may be 
offered cannot affect the truth of the previous account, 
yet since the question itself is both legitimate and impor- 
tant, it may well receive a moment's attention. 

In the first place, then, consistency is universally valued, 
not perhaps as an end in itself, but as a means and as a 
sign. As the natural and necessary outcome of an all- 
sided development it stands for intellectual, volitional, or 
other perfection. As the condition of the attainment of 
any complex end it will be valued even by the most prosaic 
and the most stupid. Hence in so far as a man can be 
made to see things as they are he must despise himself 
for living on the lower planes of conduct, because this 
means that what he builds up with one hand he is tear- 
ing down with the other. He who throughout acts objec- 
tively right is simply one who possesses the continuity of 
purpose indispensable for the attainment of any definite 
goal. 

Moreover the direction of the desires of the completely 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 131 

developed man, who is the ultimate standard, is no mat- 
ter of indifference to his less advanced neighbor ; on the 
contrary it is something which may have a very impor- 
tant effect upon both his feelings and his conduct. For 
there exists an element in human nature which, while 
Kant would undoubtedly call it accidental, is at all events 
universal or well-nigh universal in extent. This is the 
desire to possess all the powers and capabilities of the 
race, and the corresponding admiration for men in pro- 
portion as they possess them. For this reason, as soon as 
we discover that certain feelings and attitudes are the- 
necessary result of any of these powers, such feelings 
and attitudes begin to command our respect. We are 
pleased to find traces of them in ourselves, and tend to 
feel ashamed when they fail to appear. Just in so far, 
then, as the morally callous realize their relation to the 
morally developed they are in just that position with ref- 
erence to objective rightness that Kant wished them to 
be. Even though in action recalcitrant, they feel the 
wish to be able to conform to its dictates ; they look up 
to it with reverence ; they are constrained to characterize 
it in their secret thoughts as the more excellent way. 

We are now ready for our final definition. Right and 
wrong are adjectives applied to the system of a man's 
desires as these exhibit themselves in relation to the 
demands of the situation. We might almost replace this 
last by "the system of his criticised desires;" but com- 
mon sense does not stick to this point of view quite con- 
sistently, and we may not simplify our formula by smooth- 
ing out the facts. Right furthermore applies to desire 
in what we may call its universal aspect ; it marks an ap- 
probation the grounds of which will hold, in the opinion 
of the person judging, for every one under the same 
conditions. Yet not every one's approbation entitles a 



132 STUDIES m PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

given embodiment of desire (the purpose) to the desig- 
nation right. Right marks the approbations of the man 
whose ideals of conduct form a consistent system and are 
at the same time the expression of a completely developed 
personality. 

Ill 

The foregoing definition will appear to have omitted 
all reference to what for many persons is the most char- 
acteristic feature of the moral judgment ; namely, the 
sense of obligation which it is capable of awakening when 
its findings are applied to our own conduct. It therefore 
remains for me to exhibit what I conceive to be the rela- 
tion of obligation to approbation, and to show that after 
all a place has been left for the former in our definition. 

The characteristic element in the consciousness of ob- 
ligation appears to me to be emotional in nature. Cer- 
tainly those writers who have argued most persuasively 
for its assimilation with the intellectual factors of the 
mind have reached their conclusion by asserting at once 
the objectivity of moral distinctions and the impossibility 
of obtaining such objectivity from approbation. As has 
been seen, while accepting the former I reject the latter 
position. With its rejection seems to disappear the only 
important argument that has been advanced for the corol- 
lary. 

If this first step has started us in the right direction, 
the question arises whether obligation is an emotion dis- 
tinct from approbation, as anger is from fear, or whether 
the former is a modification of the latter. I shall con- 
tend for the second alternative. 

In the first place, approbation is an emotion called out 
by all manifestations of a good character, those of others 
as well as of self, my own past as well as my future, 
whereas the feeling of obligation rises only in connection 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 133 

with future acts of my own. Obedience to the law of 
parsimony should therefore lead us to consider with 
great care whether the more limited phenomenon is not 
a special case of the broader one. 

A far more decisive consideration, however, is derivable 
from an analysis of the state itself. The feeling of obli- 
gation, properly so called, seems never to appear except 
where we are set face to face with the disagreeable or 
unwelcome in some of its forms, and are at the same time 
constrained into accepting it. I think this is virtually 
admitted by all parties to the controversy, whatever sig- 
nificance they may attach to the fact. Certainly its truth 
is attested by common usage. We do not ordinarily say 
that we are under obligation to eat, though the thoughtful 
man is well aware that eating has an important place in the 
programme of the moral life. But when the convalescent 
is brought the food essential to the return of health, then 
if the sight or odor be distasteful, the feeling of an obli- 
gation to eat will at once arise. The use of the word duty, 
which points to this same factor in the moral conscious- 
ness, suggests the same conclusion. " The conference had 
the privilege, sometimes the duty, of listening to various 
projects of reform," is a statement I once read in a news- 
paper. Similarly every one distinguishes between his 
" duty calls " and the rest of his social engagements. To 
be sure, duty and obligation are often used as synonymous 
with right ; but this evidently has the same ground as 
the children's notion that all good things to eat are un- 
healthful. That is to say, we are apt to think of the 
Tightness of an action only when we should be glad to 
get out of doing it ; in other words, when it is a duty. 
In view of these facts we seem justified in asserting that 
the feeling of coercion or constraint is an essential factor 
in the emotion of obligation. 



134 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

A second factor seems equally undeniable; namely, 
acceptance by the will of the unwelcome demand. It is 
this desire that after all the deed be not left undone which 
often makes the strong soul go forth to meet the obliga- 
tion with a kind of joy, that gives it its authority, that 
leads us to recognize it as at bottom self-imposed. For 
if the burden were forced upon us by some power utterly 
alien to the will, we should bear it in the spirit in which 
the natural man bears sickness or failure, as something 
to be annihilated without mercy at the first opportunity 
and to be endured in the interval with such patience as 
we possess. But acceptance by the will, what is that but 
approbation? Since everything of sufficient importance 
to arouse resistance must be approved if it is not to be 
reckoned simply as an enejny a outrance. 

If the preceding description can be trusted, obligation 
may be defined as the feeling of approbation qualified by 
the feeling of shrinking from the disagreeable. Where 
the actions necessary to the realization of an ideal come 
into contact with strong passions, or deep-seated habits, 
or involve suffering, loss, or eft'ort, there is inevitably 
a certain shrinking. And yet at the same time we feel 
ourselves none the less attracted forward by our ideal. 
Alike, then, whether we play the coward or press onward, 
the complex emotion I have been describing must neces- 
sarily make its appearance. The correctness of our iden- 
tification of this emotion with the feeling of obligation 
seems demonstrated by the impossibility of discovering 
by its side, in the act of moral judgment, a second feel- 
ing distinguishable from it and yet possessing any of the 
qualities attributable to the feeling of obligation. 

Thus our analysis seems to warrant the conclusion that 
obligation is not something outside of and independent 
of approbation. And since the consciousness of obligation, 



THE MORAL JUDGMENT 135 

together with the objectivity of moral distinctions^ are the 
fields which have suppHed the most important arguments 
against the view that all the facts of the moral life are 
ultimately expressible in terms of approbation, our analy- 
sis of these phenomena, if correct, has contributed some- 
thing towards the justification of the assumption upon 
which this study has, throughout its course, been based. 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 

Frederick J. E. Woodbridge 

The remarkable philosophical development which began 
with Descartes and Locke and culminated in Hegel, and 
which has had various revivals and restatements since, 
appears to have been controlled by a few basal concep- 
tions. One might even claim that a single conception, 
namely, the conception of the mind with its related con- 
ception of consciousness, has given to the whole move- 
ment its significant character and its typical problems. 
That mind or consciousness should have been made the 
central fact for the philosophical interpretation of the 
world stands out as one of the striking achievements of 
modem thinking. Around this central fact have grown 
up systems of idealism possessing remarkable ingenuity 
and thoroughness. Yet there are many indications to-day 
that these systems, once so generally fascinating, are los- 
ing their interest. Among the most striking illustrations 
of this is the remarkable diminution in the influence 
of the Kantian philosophy during the past decade. To 
the average university student to-day, that philosophy 
appears not simply unconvincing, but decidedly on the 
wrong track. It represents to him the philosophical ex- 
pression of the eighteenth-century glorification of reason 
rather than a serious inquiry conformable in principle to 
the present status of our general knowledge. The great 
German systems are not now read with the eagerness 
with which many of us were once familiar. There are 



138 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

also indications of radical opposition which has put ideal- 
ism on the defensive. Pragmatism and radical empiricism, 
although owning a certain kinship with the great modern 
systems, are disturbing factors which put many traditional 
convictions in peril. Natural science, increasing the scope 
and depth of its interests, and the theory of evolution, in 
its attempt at recovering a genuinely cosmic point of 
view, have tended to displace the mind from its central 
position in the interpretation of the world. There are, 
thus, not only clear evidences of a transition in philosophy, 
— our age has long been characterized as one of transi- 
tion, — but the motives and the direction of the transition 
are gaining clearness. 

The situation has its distinct logical interest, for transi- 
tions naturally indicate a change in controlling ideas. 
Thinking is guided by convictions instinctively or tradi- 
tionally acquired which seldom come to the surface for 
critical scrutiny until the systems they carry have attained 
a high degree of logical perfection. When, however, the 
system has passed beyond the period of enthusiastic con- 
struction and become familiar, its hidden assumptions 
tend to appear as problems. Astronomy and geometry 
present classic illustrations of this movement of thought 
in science. The progress of philosophy follows the same 
principle and appears to be giving present illustration of 
it. I propose in this paper to examine certain features 
of this illustration and to indicate, if possible, some of 
the directions which this transition is taking. I desire to 
do this, however, under the restrictions imposed by a 
consideration of the problem of consciousness. 

This restriction has, as I have already suggested, its 
motive in the central position which the traditional con- 
ception of consciousness has had in modern philosophy. 
It will be my aim, first, to show how this traditional con- 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 139 

ception has been logically responsible for the characteristic 
doctrines of modern idealism ; secondly, to indicate some 
of the natural difficulties which these doctrines present ; 
and, thirdly, to suggest a modified conception of conscious- 
ness and some of the problems to which it appears to 
lead. 



The conception of consciousness which has controlled 
the major portion of modern philosophy, reaching over 
even into the thought of such men as Huxley and Spen- 
cer, was pretty definitely fixed by Descartes, Locke, and 
Kant. In Locke, however, it appears to have received its 
simplest formulation and to have afforded the first clear 
and definite statement of the fundamental principles 
which have characterized the idealistic development 
through Hegel and since. These principles are the fol- 
lowing : (1) the only objects of knowledge are ideas ; 
(2) all ideas are acquired ; and (3) knowledge is a synthe- 
sis of ideas. It is apparent at once that we have here the 
germs of the idealistic doctrines of phenomenalism, of 
experience, and of rationally deduced, synthesizing cate- 
gories. These were the doctrines which the subsequent 
development was interested in perfecting. The three 
propositions appear also to have been certain limiting 
conditions under which the philosophy of individual 
thinkers took specific directions. They controlled Berke- 
ley, for instance, in his analysis of the meaning of exist- 
ence when applied to the objects of knowledge, and in 
his interpretation of the conceptions of the external world, 
of substance, and of causation. Hume was driven to 
skepticism because he could interpret only in terms of 
the customary grouping of ideas that type of knowledge 
which purported to be vaKd beyond the senses and memory. 



140 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

Kant, it would appear, expended his skill in answering 
the question, How, under the conditions stated, can the 
understanding be said to have an object at all ? and ex- 
hibited in the answer what he regarded as the essential 
synthetic conditions of objects of experience in general. 
With still deeper logical insight, Hegel saw in the struc- 
ture of the " idea " itself a fertile and active principle 
capable of generating a succession of related experiences. 
But the whole remarkable development moved within the 
limits determined by the principles of Locke. 

While attempts were occasionally made, notably by 
Kant, to furnish evidence for the validity of Locke's prin- 
ciples, they have usually been presented as self-evident 
truths, apparent to trained philosophical reflection at least. 
Yet it is clear that they rest, and did rest with Locke, on 
an initial conception of the mind and consciousness with- 
out which their validity is far from apparent. The mind, 
that is, was conceived as an original capacity or receptacle, 
endowed with certain constitutional powers and needing 
the operation of some alien or resident factor to arouse it 
to activity. It was the end-term of a relation, the other 
term of which might be the external world, another mind, 
the divine being, or some unknown source of excitation. 
The important end-term was the mind. The other end- 
term tended constantly to sink into, unimportance and 
mystery, dwindling on the way into the Kantian Ding 
an sich, until, indeed, as in the post-Kantian philosophy, 
the source of excitation was brought within the mind it- 
self and assigned to the mind's essential instability. This 
basal conception of the mind as an original end-term was 
expressed in various forms and different words, but in 
them all are discoverable the essential originality, isola- 
tion, independence, and exclusiveness of that plastic and 
impressionable thing which through experience of some 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 141 

sort comes to possess consciousness and knowledge, or to 
be itself the consciousness of a world. 

One sees now very clearly what history has so abun- 
dantly illustrated; namely, that the outcome of such an 
original and controlling conception of the mind and con- 
sciousness is pretty definitely determined in its general 
outlines by the logic of the situation. Strip the mind so 
conceived of every determinate character, and the concept 
of it yields, as Hume showed, absolutely nothing. It is 
then a wholly useless conception. Its value can be pre- 
served only by assigning to it in increasing measure the 
character which may ultimately give to the whole of ex- 
perience and the world their essential features. Of this 
latter method, Kant and his successors are the beautiful 
illustrations. 

The logical influence of the end-term conception of the 
mind on modern philosophy becomes more evident as one 
examines with greater minuteness some of its major doc- 
trines. The doctrine of ideas, or states of consciousness, 
is a natural deduction from it. Locke's statement of the 
situation is typical : " It is evident that the mind knows 
not things immediately, but only by the intervention of 
the ideas it has of them." This statement is clearly evi- 
dent if the mind is a plastic capacity modified by some 
sort of operation. States of consciousness naturally appear 
as distinctly mental facts constituting some sort of an in- 
tervening group of existences. Sensations and ideas find 
their place in the mind alone. They cannot be in the 
physical world nor have physical characteristics. Being 
made up wholly of the mind or consciousness, they must 
obey exclusively mental laws. Their enumeration, classifi- 
cation, and combinations afford psychology characteristic 
problems. As ideas are the only objects of knowledge, 
knowledge itself must be explained through either the 



142 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

association or the synthesis of ideas. This doctrine of 
ideas or mental states or states of consciousness has been 
worked out with characteristic skill and zeal in much of 
modern epistemology and psychology. Every student of 
these subjects has become familiar with the details and 
problems of the movement. Note, for instance, the multi- 
plication of ideas and the distinction between substantive 
and transitive states involving the recognition of such 
feelings as of "and" and "if," the controversy over the 
question whether states of consciousness are spaceless and 
timeless, the association controversy, the puzzling question 
how one state can know another state, and the doctrine of 
successive representation. I do not ask what real progress 
has been made or what satisfactory solutions reached. I 
wish here solely to connect the whole movement with the 
end- term conception of the mind as the logical outgrowth 
of that conception. While this connection gives the move- 
ment motive and definition, it cannot, of course, give it 
truth or validity, for these desired merits depend on the 
truth and validity of the specific notion of the mind which 
controls the details, the problems, and the solutions. 

The doctrine that knowledge is a synthesis of ideas is 
a natural derivative from the same conception. The gen- 
eral conditions of the synthesis were conceived by Locke 
in a very simple way. Ideas, he thought, were originally 
produced in the mind in an isolated and disconnected 
manner because of the isolation and disconnection of the 
avenues of sense. The mind was consequently passive in 
the first reception of ideas, but as soon as it had received 
them, it became active, and combined and related its ideas 
in various ways. Here we find the important beginnings 
of the doctrine of synthesis, involving its two significant 
features, namely, an original confusion and a subsequent 
order, and its essential problem, namely, How is the 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 143 

passage from confusion to order effected? The history of 
the doctrine is a familiar story. But it is important to 
note how some of its most revolutionary features have 
been motived with a kind of logical necessity. Take, for 
example, the Kantian doctrine of space and time. This 
might readily be deduced from Locke's position. Since 
our only objects are ideas and these appear first in con- 
fusion, their subsequent spatial and temporal order must 
be an arrangement in a space and a time which are first 
in the mind. And in general, if there are any universal 
and necessary types of arrangement or order arising out 
of the original confusion, these types must indicate the 
fixed mental conditions under which the progress from 
confusion to order is effected. Their deduction becomes 
then a pretty problem for the ingenious. Again, thus, 
there is forced upon one who would analytically examine 
the progress of modern idealism with the view of discov- 
ering its logical motive, the realization that this motive 
lies originally in the end-term conception of the mind, in 
the notion of consciousness as a receptivity. 

This conception appears not only to have motived the 
major doctrines of modern idealism, it appears also to 
have controlled in large measure the various problems 
which arise when the attempt is made to put the deliver- 
ances of the idealistic philosophy and psychology into 
some intelligible relation with the deliverances of physical 
science. This is notably the case in the problems of the 
relation of mind to body and of the efficiency of con- 
sciousness. For the thorough and absolute idealist these 
problems may not exist in any vital or disturbing manner. 
But for the less thorough, for those who have not yet 
quite succeeded in attaining a satisfactory deduction of 
the course and laws of nature from the cognitive syntheses 
of experience, these problems have been serious. Others 



144 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

have made them the points of departure for a subsequent 
idealistic philosophy. But why should such problems 
exist at all? Natural science may indeed afford some 
occasion for their existence, and certainly has done so in 
its emphasis on the principle of the conservation of energy. 
But it seems to me that science, unaided by the dominant 
notions of the philosophical movement under considera- 
tion, could not have raised these problems in the form 
with which we are familiar. So long as the mind is con- 
ceived as an end-term we may speculate concerning its 
relation to the other end-term ; and so long as conscious- 
ness is the mind's possession we may inquire about its 
relation to the body and its physical efficiency. On this 
basis automatism, interaction, and parallelism are for- 
mally statable problems. Without any appeal to physical 
science, the logical preference for parallelism is apparent. 
For if consciousness constitutes an intervening group or 
order of existences, if ideas or states of mind, with their 
exclusively mental relations and laws, comprise its whole 
content, then anything, such as the body, beyond con- 
sciousness is forever beyond. No relation, least of -all 
that of efficiency, can be constituted between such dispar- 
ate existences. If we hold to these existences, the most 
we can claim is that they are concomitant or parallel. 

The foregoing considerations have warranted, I think, 
the thesis of the first part of this paper : namely, that the 
conception of the mind as an end-term of a relation, the 
notion of consciousness as a receptivity modified some- 
how into a synthesis of its own states, has motived and 
controlled the development of modern idealism and the 
characteristic philosophical problems related to that de- 
velopment. I have cited, to be sure, a limited number of 
instances and treated these briefly. Both the number 
of instances and the treatment could be extended, but I 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 145 

have not been able to discover that such extension would 
do anything else than add to the claims of the thesis. It 
appears to me, therefore, that the attempt to assault the 
logical structure of idealism is futile. Such a procedure 
begets not understanding and appreciation, but only fruit- 
less controversy. If philosophy is to advance in any other 
direction than a still greater logical perfection — if that 
indeed is possible — of the structure, the basal conception 
of consciousness must first be altered. 

II 

Theories are, however, to be estimated, not only by 
their logical perfection, but by their believability. The 
latter excellence is indeed the more to be desired, for a 
believable theory may patiently wait for its successful 
logical systematization, while one not beHevable is always 
at a discount no matter how perfect its structure. The 
existence of positivism, to say nothing of the excessively 
controversial atmosphere of modern philosophy, is proof 
enough that the completest philosophical product of 
modern times is not generally credible. The taunt that 
Hume threw at Berkeley — that the latter' s philosophy 
admitted of no refutation and produced no conviction — 
has been frequently repeated with wider application. Its 
significance is typical, and warrants the inquiry why the 
whole philosophy of ideas, in spite of its logical beauty, 
has so often produced no conviction. A ready answer 
might be found in the suggestion that its controlling 
conception has been repeatedly subject to suspicion. 
Until quite recently, however, this suspicion has received 
little really positive formulation. It is worth while, there- 
fore, to examine some of the general causes of doubt. 

First among these might be noted the fact that modern 
idealism, when clearly envisaged in its completest forms. 



146 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

appears to be markedly artificial, to have what we might 
call a too predominantly literary character. It is like a 
work of art, affecting the beholder aesthetically, enthrall- 
ing his contemplation, rather than like a work of science, 
convincing on account of the familiarity and homeliness 
of its terms and its procedure. Besides this it forces upon 
one a view of things which is not an extension and refine- 
ment of his natural, instinctive view, but a radical trans- 
formation of it. It begets the sense of illusion, a kind of 
Platonic wonder. Then, too, it requires a resoluteness of 
will and a vigorous control of the emotions to hold one 
up to it with an orderly, every-day acceptance. In eating 
and drinking, in marrying and giving in marriage, in being 
born and in dying, in begetting offspring and rearing 
them, in loving and hating, in w^ars and tumults, in plague, 
pestilence, and famine, humanity is very prone to lapse 
into the crudest forms of realism. There is, undoubtedly, 
something preposterous in the notion that one can attain 
to anything like a complete insight into the nature of 
reality by a scrutiny of the processes of knowledge, while 
actual living is such a totally different affair. 

The artificiality with which idealism is chargeable ap- 
pears on examination to lie in the logical constraint which 
its controlling conception exercises. What ideas are and 
what the mind essentially is are questions to be answered 
by it a j^^riori and transcendentally. Huxley tells us, for 
instance, that sensations " have no attributes in common 
with those we ascribe to matter ; they are, in the strictest 
sense of the words, immaterial entities." And what Hux- 
ley says of sensations has been repeatedly said of ideas 
and states of consciousness in general. They are space- 
less and timeless, obeying only immaterial or mental laws. 
To think in this way concerning the objects we directly 
perceive, is clearly to think under the constraint of as- 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 147 

sumptions, but not under the constraint of the objects 
we examine. Ideas ought to be immaterial on the idealis- 
tic basis. But is this anything more than a statement of 
what logical consistency demands on this particular basis ? 
Psychology after psychology has told us that we know 
what mental states are much better than we can define 
them, and then proceeded to enumerate a lot of things we 
can put into our pockets or throw out of the window, or 
take into our stomachs, or shut our eyes and ears to. No 
wonder that honesty has at last compelled the admission 
that such things are in space and in time, are weighed 
and measured, obey the laws of gravitation and motion, 
so that they begin to look perilously like physical and 
material things after all. Even Berkeley would admit as 
much, and yet he could claim that he had dealt material- 
ism its finishing stroke ! And Kant, to preserve the doc- 
trine of ideas, must make space and time and the laws of 
nature synthetic principles of the mind ! Surely here is 
the refinement of artificiality. The characteristics of the 
things we perceive suffer no change by being alternately 
called material and immaterial. They do not alter their 
weight or their color or their distances from each other. 
In themselves they exhibit no striking preference for 
metaphysical terminology. A preference is imported from 
an assumption, and that assumption does not throw any 
light whatever on the character or history of the things 
we perceive. The statement, therefore, that we perceive 
states of consciousness rather than physical objects ap- 
pears to be pretty much of a merely verbal affair. 

If we can have no genuine and ultimate contrast be- 
tween states of consciousness and things which are not 
states of consciousness, if our only contrasts can be between 
completeness and incompleteness, or between internal and 
external meanings of ideas, wherein lies the propriety of 



148 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the philosophy of ideas ? What gives it distinctive fea- 
tures to set it off by contrast from other philosophies? 
These are current questions and await an answer. By 
asking them with perfect clearness and insistence, prag- 
matism has put ideahsm entirely on the defensive. The 
historical answer would appear to be that the distinctive 
feature of idealism lies in its initial assumption. But if it 
is only assumptions that make differences in philosophical 
systems, the dispute about the relative merits of rival 
assumptions must seem, even to the combatants in their 
calm and reflective moments, very strained and artificial. 
Locke, we know, facilitated his own thinking by his 
doctrine that all ideas are acquired, and thus furnished 
the motive for the subsequent idealistic doctrines of 
experience. Since all ideas are acquired by the mind, 
we may, says Locke, conceive the mind to be originally 
empty, devoid of ideas. Let the mind now be capable of 
receiving impressions, and let some impressing agency 
affect it, then immediately the mind will have ideas after 
the old analogy of the wax impressed by the seal. Much 
of modern psychology has traveled the same road. But 
what warrant is there for conceiving the mind to be such 
a receptive plasticity ? An empty mind, a consciousness- 
producing receptacle, turns out to be anything we arbi- 
trarily and artificially choose to make it. We can give it 
any powers or potencies we desire, and no one can reason- 
ably say us nay. Yet it may be claimed that while the 
mind may be an assumption, we may not be arbitrary in 
determining its character, for that, like the character of 
any hypothesis, must be determined in accordance with 
the facts of experience. The mind, consequently, can 
have only that character which the constitution of expe- 
rience makes necessary. But even so, nothing can pre- 
vent our supposing as the correlative of mind the physical 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 149 

world of Newton, as Locke did, or other minds, as the 
panpsychist does, or conceiving the mind as an absolute 
self-representative system, as other ideahsts do. And so 
far it would appear that all the facts of experience are 
accounted for to the satisfaction of him who entertains 
any one of these suppositions. Yet we can hardly claim 
that these three suppositions are simultaneously true. 
Suppose that there is a mind, and its nature may be such 
as experience leads us to conclude, but that does not 
warrant us in supposing that there is a mind in order to 
account for the facts of experience. Fruitful hypotheses 
from experience are not made after that fashion. 

Undoubtedly, if the term "mind" has any meaning, that 
meaning must be determined by a study of ascertainable 
facts. But just as undoubtedly that study must begin 
with the facts as they are given, untransformed by any 
assumption. And what I desire to maintain is that these 
facts, in their ascertainable character, cannot be essen- 
tially and metaphysically characterized as "ideas" without 
appeal to assumptions which deliberately attempt to carry 
us back of the facts to which appeal is made. When this 
is done, all progress is blocked. Thought then wanders 
aimlessly in a circle. One cannot reach the mind, by 
claiming that all objects are ideas and then trying to 
establish this claim by insisting that from the nature 
of mind ideas can be its only objects. It is precisely 
the suspicion that this is just what idealism does, that 
tends again to make it appear artificial and incredible. 

A critical examination of the attempted definitions of 
the physical and the psychical, of the body-mind problem, 
and of the problem of the efficiency of consciousness, 
as these problems have been stated and discussed from 
the idealistic point of view, would only multiply the in- 
stances where the philosophy of ideas begets the sense 



150 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

of artificiality and incredibility. These instances and those 
already discussed arise within idealism itself. There are 
exterior sources of doubt which also should be noted. 

Among these the contrast which the content of natural 
science presents to idealistic philosophy has been repeat- 
edly pointed out. No doubt idealistic philosophers may 
feel little difficulty in harmonizing natural science with 
their systems. Their claims are not the point at issue. 
The fact is that natural science has steadily tended to 
decrease the importance of man and his philosophizing 
about the world. I do not speak of natural science turned 
dogmatic and become as final a metaphysics as any ideal- 
ism ever claimed to be. Such a metaphysics could be, 
at best, only a rival, and a rival carrying his own big 
burden of doubt. I speak rather of that sense of a vast 
and enfolding nature which science in its steady, pro- 
gressive achievements constantly deepens within us, be- 
getting, in spite of most signal successes, a feeling of 
intellectual impotence and humility. Under its spell we 
seem to be of the earth, anchored to it, with our metaphys- 
ical excursions only imaginary voyages. If we embark for 
conquests, our spoils of victory are not of the metaphysi- 
cal kind. The mind and heart may cry out for philoso- 
phies, but nature replies only with what we call scientific 
knowledge. This contrast between the desired and the 
attained puts the desired ever within the sphere of hope, 
never within that of achievement. Thus we are warned 
tliat all philosophies must be aspiring and tentative only. 
No one at all attentive to the spirit of our age can fail 
to appreciate how deeply rooted this feeling has become. 
Long ago there arose protestantism in religion, and now 
there arises protestantism in thought. All this may, how- 
ever, indicate a return of philosophy to sanity, but it 
indicates assuredly a source of suspicion of those philoso- 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 151 

phies which seek to explain the world primarily from the 
initial fact that man happens to be conscious of a small 
part of it. 

Not only does natural science thus raise doubts of 
idealism, but also, and more significantly perhaps, does 
the fact that evolution has been slowly and steadily alter- 
ing our fundamental ways of looking at the world. It has 
made it less natural for us to think of the mind and con- 
sciousness after the manner of Locke and Kant. We have 
been led rather to think of it as a thing with a history, an 
event the causes of which we might some day discover. 
In evolution there is no mind as an end-term whose rela- 
tions eventuate in consciousness. There are rather pro- 
cesses of various sorts undergoing continual reorganiza- 
tion until, at last, they become conscious and understand 
the conditions out of which they grew, learn their own 
history and genesis, and thus awake to the conviction that 
consciousness is not something original, but derived. This 
conception of a natural evolution of the mind and con- 
sciousness has not been worked out as thoroughly as the 
idealistic conception, but, grasped even in dim outlines, it 
must render the older conception suspicious. What be- 
comes of the vast synthetic machinery of the mind, if the 
mind itself has been dethroned ? Can the question, '^ How 
does the mind know the world? " have significance when 
you are asking the question, " How does the world evolve 
to consciousness of itself ? " To answer, " The world 
grows to consciousness of itself because fundamentally a 
mind is, or minds are, evolving a world to know," can 
carry little conviction to the attentive reader of Darwin 
and Spencer. The more clearly the concepts of evolution 
are understood, the more impossible the traditional ideal- 
istic approach to philosopy appears to be. 

Observe, too, in what a different position evolution 



152 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

places the body. It makes it no longer some strange 
phenomenon of mind, a kind of garment with which the 
soul covers the nakedness of its immateriality. It makes 
it rather the mind's essential basis and support, a thing 
wherein the mind can appear. More correctly stated, the 
mind is the body's perfected operation and achievement, 
as Aristotle taught us long ago. The question, therefore, 
whether mind is efficient would appear meaningless to the 
evolutionist. He would find it difficult to take the problem 
of interaction seriously. For to him it is quite evident 
that conscious bodies are more efficient than those that 
are not. His evidence rests on no speculation as to the 
relation of mind to body, but on the fact that greater 
organization means both greater efficiency and a new type 
of existence. Here he keeps close company with our ordi- 
nary kinds of knowledge. No one doubts that beings be- 
come more efficient by becoming conscious, any more than 
one doubts that a live man is more efficient than a dead 
one. No one doubts it, not because he merely wants to 
believe it, or because he cannot doubt it, but because 
the greater efficiency of conscious beings is matter of 
common knowledge and ordinary proof. How artificial 
and strained the evolutionary line of thought thus makes 
a much debated problem appear ! 

I do not mean to imply that consciousness and its rela- 
tion to the body present no problems for the evolutionist. 
He must admit that the peculiarities of conscious activity 
give to the study of its conditions peculiar interest. That 
a being when he becomes conscious can think of things 
very remote, both in time and space, from his organism 
is a very unique and baffling kind of fact. But I would 
imply that, in dealing with it, the evolutionist will not 
])e likely to find himself on the road which leads to the 
philosophy of ideas. When he does that, he has already 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 153 

despaired of his problem. Huxley, we may remember, 
reluctantly admitted that if he had to, he could embrace 
idealism, but also insisted that he would not b-e compelled 
to that embrace. 

Evolution is modifying also our conception of what 
" ideas " themselves are, and this modification is distinctly 
in the direction of setting aside the notion that they con- 
stitute an order of existence in a region distinct and iso- 
lated from the rest of the world. For if consciousness is 
the outgrowth of reorganization, what one is immediately 
conscious of would appear to be only the results of this 
reorganization. Still further, if we suppose that the his- 
tory of this process can be continuously traced, there re- 
mains no motive for supposing that somewhere an entirely 
and essentially new order of existences has intervened. 
Evolution may not be true and its assumptions may be 
unwarranted, but they exist none the less, and point dis- 
tinctly to a new order of philosophical problems. Their 
existence is a natural menace to the claims of idealism. 

There are, thus, within idealism and without, reasons 
which tend to make that philosophy appear artificial and 
unbelievable, and these reasons have to-day assumed such 
great proportions that they can no longer be dismissed by 
the idealist in the easy fashion which too often is his 
wont. He can no longer simply bid the doubter study 
Kant and Hegel once again. He can no longer discharge 
with telling effect the reproaches of materialism and natu- 
ralism. For we have attained a new respect for matter and 
a new affection for nature. We seem to have entered into 
a new world, where, indeed, we may not see very clearly, 
but where there is light enough at least to show that no 
extraordinary wild beasts are waiting to devour us. We 
may have lost much, but surely there must be a fair pro- 
spect from the hills we see. 



154 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

III 

The need of reconstruction in philosophy has thus been 
felt in many quarters. However vrried the attempts to 
meet the need may appear, they have in general regarded 
the problem of consciousness as fundamental and initial 
to any satisfactory reconstruction. The necessity of such 
a point of view may be seriously questioned. An enlight- 
ened naturalism might see in the fact of consciousness no 
problem of a peculiar or fundamental kind. It might be 
claimed that when we become conscious we become able 
measurably to understand the world in which we live and 
to discover the natural conditions on which our becoming 
conscious depends, but that the discovery of these condi- 
tions presents the same sort of problem which the discovery 
of the conditions of any other event presents. If it should 
be objected that this procedure involves the assumption 
of the reality and validity of knowledge, and thus an epis- 
temology, the naturalist might readily assent. He would 
probably claim, however, that the attempt to discover 
anything whatsoever, even the validity of knowledge, for 
instance, makes the same assumption. He would doubt- 
less point to all existing epistemologies in confirmation of 
his contention. Yet even so, there is at least an oppor- 
tunistic reason why the philosopher should assign special 
importance to the problem of consciousness. That problem 
has been the central and controlling problem of modern 
idealism. Our philosophy has become so disturbed and 
disorganized by it, that we cannot hojDC to find our Avay 
about with confidence and freedom until the problem has 
been reckoned with. We can hardly dismiss idealism 
cavalierly as a great mistake. The field of consciousness, 
however small it may be, remains the point of departure 
for every inquiry and the point of arrival for every solu- 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 155 

tion. This fact, which idealism has put beyond all haughty 
disregard of it, furnishes a reason much more than oppor- 
tunistic for a special interest in the problem of conscious- 
ness. There would seem, therefore, to be both propriety 
and justification for the continued importance of that 
problem. 

The recent attempts at * reconstruction to which I have 
referred show a general agreement in their conception of 
consciousness. Instead of conceiving it as an end-term 
of a relation, they have conceived it as a relation itself. 
If this change is to mean anything more than a merely 
logical contrast with the starting-point of idealism, or a 
new assumption the conclusions from which are to be de- 
duced, it is important that the sense in which conscious- 
ness is conceived as a relation should be made clear. To 
this end we may make an examination of the conscious 
situation itself from such points of view as may prove 
suggestive. It is perhaps the difference in points of 
view rather than in the real nature of the results reached 
that accounts for much of current misunderstanding. I 
desire, therefore, to lay special emphasis on the point of 
view adopted in this paper, namely, the point of view 
of our reflective conscious inquiry. No situation can be 
more familiar to us or less equivocal than that in which we 
deliberately engage in some sort of inquiry, seek to solve 
some problem, or put questions to the objects and events 
of life in the hope of getting the answers we call know- 
ledge. The situation is, in short, that of our conscious 
inquiry into whatever we may be conscious of. 

It has been claimed that it is impossible to examine 
such a situation. While such a claim appears to me to be 
not only incapable of justification but also absurd, a brief 
consideration of it may aid the purposes of definition. 
The claim in question asserts that from the temporal or 



156 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

flowing character of consciousness we can never be con- 
scious of a situation at the same time in which the situa- 
tion exists, but are conscious of it only in representation. 
Stated in terms of introspection, we introspect only situa- 
tions that have passed ; in terms of states of consciousness, 
one state can never be its own object, but the object only 
of a succeeding state. I was about to say with reference 
to this claim what has been often said ; namely, that if it 
were true we then could never introspect anything or be 
conscious of anything. It is more important, however, to 
note that the truth of the claim is a matter about which 
it may not be profitable to dispute, for we want to know 
whether consciousness has just that flowing, successive 
character which gives to the claim all the force it has. 
Surely, if that question cannot be settled, the claim is at 
best only gratuitous or presumptive. If the question can 
be settled, however, I am perplexed in trying to under- 
stand what an affirmative answer really means ; for so far 
as I am aware, every affirmative answer has really presup- 
posed the successive character of consciousness. The pre- 
supposition may have some doctrine of time back of it. 
If so, the question is pertinent. Have we consciousness 
of time ? Again, the alternative answers appear either to 
throw no light upon the question at issue, or simply to 
continue controversy. I would emphasize also the fact that 
the doctrine of successive consciousness is bound up with 
the end-term conception of the mind and the doctrine of 
mental states. 

The dispute, however, may, as I have suggested, aid 
the purposes of definition. Whatever we may conclude 
the nature of consciousness to be, we start our investiga- 
tions from a point that can be commanded. Our conclu- 
sions are derived from that commanding point ; they are 
explications and elucidations of it. We may admit that 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 157 

/ 
it is possible that our conclusions may completely revolu- 
tionize our point o£ departure, but it is important that we 
should always see just how that revolution is effected. So 
long as we cannot do that, we are still in the realm of 
tentative guesses. I feel constrained, therefore, to abide 
by the limitation I have imposed. Problems appear only 
in situations immediately within our grasp. No matter 
what causes may have generated them, they must first be 
problems for inquiry before their causes can be discovered. 

The same considerations warrant, I think, the rejection 
of the genetic point of view for the primary consideration 
of consciousness. Consciousness may, no doubt, have had 
an evolution, it may begin to be, and the conditions of its 
genesis may be discoverable. But clearly that discovery 
will be made by starting from some present situation 
which must first be defined if the discovery is to be esti- 
mated properly. Again, there may well be lower grades of 
consciousness which are prior to the grade where problems 
exist, and out of w^hich problems emerge ; but such grades 
are inferred in order to answer existing problems which 
must first have been stated. In short, a metaphysics of 
consciousness, an inquiry into its nature as an existing 
concrete situation, appears to be fundamental to any fer- 
tile theory. 

Theories of perception are not directly a help in such 
an inquiry. They have, indeed, been more productive of 
confusion than of enlightenment, on account of their con- 
nection with the doctrines discussed in the second part of 
this paper. Yet the present status of the theory of per- 
ception has an indirect bearing which ^ should be noted. 
The theory appears to have attained the character of a 
natural science, and as such has the same general phi- 
losophical bearings as any other natural science. This 
means, of course, that the theory does not exist to its 



158 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

own prejudice. It exists rather in its own right. By that 
I mean that the facts in terms of which the theory is 
formulated do not undergo any transformation in their 
nature on account of the theory, although they may 
undergo refinement and extension. The psychologist dis- 
covers what the conditions of seeing or hearing are, pre- 
cisely after the manner in which the chemist discovers 
the conditions under which certain combinations occur. 
In each case we start with definite, relatable facts which 
remain just those facts and no others throughout the 
inquiry. No other presuppositions are made besides the 
existence of the facts in the manner in which they are 
found to exist before the theory is framed. The theory 
of perception as a theory of natural science does not 
interpose a percept between a mind and a stimulus. It 
simply takes the stimulus and asks what machinery is 
involved in perceiving it. There is no mystery about the 
stimulus. It is always something that can be produced in 
definite, concrete form. The act of perception is equally 
definite and concrete. Given the definite stimulus and 
the definite act, the theory simply asks for the machinery 
which connects them. When thus conceived the theory 
of perception can throw no direct light on the nature of 
consciousness. It may illumine the question indirectly by 
showing that in order to exist, the theory of perception 
does not need to distinguish between what we are con- 
scious of and what not. It takes its departm^e, therefore, 
from just the sort of initial situation which a theory of 
consciousness should attempt to define. To that situation 
we should now turn. 

In general, the situation of conscious inquiry exhibits 
a great variety of things, grouped in various ways and 
having manifold relations to one another. A book may 
be on a table, a bunch of flowers may be in a vase, a 



THE PROBLEM OF COXSCIOUSNESS 159 

stroke of a bell may follow a previous stroke, a pain may 
be in the head. The whole situation seems resolvable 
into things related somehow to one another. Some g'en- 
eral types of relation stand out more prominently than 
others. Conspicuous among these are the spatial and 
temporal relations. On account of their character it is 
impossible for one to be on a distant elevation without 
going there. These relations hold the things together, 
constitute such bonds between them, that any alteration 
which space and time permit must involve a certain 
amount of change both in space and time. Thus we may 
bring materials together from far and near and in the 
course of time erect them into a building. But even 
before the materials are collected and reared they may 
suggest the future building or many incidents of their 
own history. This fact reveals another conspicuous rela- 
tion which holds the things together in quite a different 
manner from the spatial and temporal. One thing may be 
a certain measurable distance from another thing, but it 
may mean that other thing without encompassing the 
distance. And I wish to emphasize the fact that this 
relation of meaning which is so prominent among the 
things is just as much a relation heticeen them as is space 
or time. It is the ice which means that it will cool the 
water, just as much as it is the ice which does cool the 
water when put into it. The water which means that it 
will quench thirst is the water which does quench thirst 
when swallowed. I take a powder to dispel the pain in the 
head, not only because pain and powder are incompatible 
in juxtaposition, but incompatible also in their meanings. 
We should note, moreover, that the relations of mean- 
ing are capable of remarkable systematization, synthesis, 
condensation, and unification, and that this takes place 
apparently without any corresponding change in the other 



160 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

relations which subsist. The meanings of the solar system 
may be condensed in a book, but not the solar system as 
a thing in space. Here, I suppose, we find the motive, so 
prominent in philosophy, for making meanings immaterial. 
For the syntheses in the meaning relation are as different 
from those in the spatial and temporal relations as the 
immaterial and the material could well be conceived to be. 
In spite of the burden of perplexity which these terms 
have had to carry, they have done too good service to be 
wholly discarded. So I venture to formulate the facts I 
have noted as follow^s : The situation under examination 
exhibits a variety of things in a variety of relations, but 
some of the relations make possible a material synthesis 
of the things, while one of the relations makes possible 
an immaterial synthesis. 

The situation has been described as conscious. With- 
out now departing from the situation itself, or seeking a 
position prior to it or beyond it, I should like to suggest 
that it is by virtue of the possibility of the immaterial 
synthesis alone that the situation is so described. The 
distinction between consciousness and not-consciousness 
would thus be brought within the situation itself, and be 
capable of verification and examination by any one in- 
terested. Such a view is at least largely consonant with 
common sense and science. For under theu' guidance we 
are wont to think of a world without consciousness in it 
as a world devoid of meaning. Add consciousness to that 
world and then meaning is added, but nothing else. But 
it is often claimed that in adding consciousness, we also 
add at least the so-called secondary qualities and pains 
and pleasures. I cannot examine this contention here 
with the thoroughness it merits, but I may observe that 
it is still in the realm of doubt and difficulty. In addition 
it is to be noted that the secondary qualities, and pains 



THE PROBLEM OF COXSCIOUSXESS 161 

and pleasures also, are capable of the contrasted syntheses 
I have emphasized. Still further, when we ask for the 
proof that secondary qualities and the like are due to 
consciousness, the proof is always stated, not in terms of 
consciousness, but in terms of a physiological organism 
which is one of the things in the conscious situation. 
These facts make it extremely difficult for me to assent 
to the statement that consciousness is in any way respon- 
sible for the specific characters of the things in the con- 
scious situation. In the absence of logically coherent 
proof that it is, I incline to the more natural view. 

Such phrases as " conscious of " and " conscious that " 
have often been taken to indicate that consciousness is not 
simply the kind of relation I have indicated, but that it 
has in addition the property of '' awareness," which gives 
to things a peculiar and immediate kind of presence. I 
am not sure but that we find ourselves here in a verbal 
difficulty, for what is it "to be aware" of anything? If 
we cannot make the "awareness" responsible for the 
thing's qualities or for its spatial and temporal relations, 
what is then left to constitute that peculiar presence? 
Indeed, it seems to me, on analysis of the situation, that 
just this character of " awareness " turns out to be the 
manifold and irresistible meaning connections which the 
things in the conscious situation have. These connec- 
tions hold the things in such a network of immaterial 
groupings, that their presence is quite other than merely 
spatial, temporal, or specifically qualitative. It is to be 
noted also that the "awareness" diminishes in its evident 
character just in proportion as the linkage of meanings 
becomes deranged. I do not find at present, therefore, 
convincing facts to indicate that "awareness" involves 
an additional characterization of consciousness. 

Such is the initial conception of consciousness which I 



162 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

Tvisli to suggest. It appears to be a relation between 
things which makes a synthesis of meanings possible, a 
relation markedly distinct from other relations between 
the same things which make possible other sorts of syn- 
theses. That the conception may not be misrepresented, 
I would call attention again to the distinct limitations 
under which it has been formulated. No attempt has 
been made here to discover the conditions under which 
consciousness exists or to show why it has its specific 
character. My sole attempt has been to examine the situ- 
ation where all our problems arise in the hope of dis- 
covering in it an initial conception of consciousness the 
further development of which might be fruitful. I am 
of the opinion that such an attempt is fundamental to 
all further inquiry, and affords the point of departure 
for an investigation of genetic conditions. Naturally, 
the conception is not itself a solvent for philosophical 
problems, but is rather a creator of them. I should like, 
therefore, in conclusion, briefly to indicate some of the 
problems which it suggests. 

The description w^hich I have given of the conscious 
situation accords, I suppose, with an idealistic description 
of experience when experience is taken in its immediate 
and evident character. After Kant, no one can claim 
any novelty or originality in pointing out a synthesis in 
space and time or a synthesis in the "understanding.'' It 
is important, however, that these syntheses should not 
be construed after the Kantian fashion or on the basis 
of idealistic assumptions. They should in no sense be 
tainted with "subjectivity." They should not be regarded 
as syntheses of "phenomena." Yet the ideaHstic attempt 
to "deduce" them presents, in its essence, a problem to 
engage attention. In other words, if we may describe the 
conscious situation as a grouping of things in different 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 163 

syntheses, the question whether these syntheses are co- 
ordinate or subordinate to one another, or involve a gen- 
eral, unifying synthesis, is a natural one to ask. But 
prior to asking it, the situation presents the general 
problem of groups, relations, and syntheses, their kinds, 
their classification, and their most general definition. The 
science of mathematics has already been so productive 
in this direction that we may confidently look for still 
greater aid from it. If all things exist in relations, we 
may naturally regard the relational formula as expressing 
the simplest and most general type of existence. It would 
appear that this formula, if it is to be general, should 
express a relation of some sort between two variables, 
and thus be of the general form xRy, This formula ap- 
plied to any situation would mean that R expresses the 
way X and y vary in relation to each other, but not the 
fact of variation in x and y. It is thus apparent that R 
will always express a law and be a principle of uniformity 
and necessity, while x and y will express facts which are 
a source of change and variety. If we are dealing with 
the causal relation, for instance, R will express the fact 
of uniformity and necessary connection, while x and y 
will express the fact of efficiency. The general problem 
of "deduction" would thus involve the discovery of an 
R of such a type that, as cc and y vary, their variations 
will result in an order of R^s, But it is to be noted that 
the fact of variation in x and y could not by this means 
be "deduced." Their original variation is essential to the 
deduction. 

It is at least superficially apparent that these consid- 
erations apply to space, time, and consciousness as rela- 
tions between things. Each of these relations conforms to 
the general type indicated by the formula. The relation 
space, when defined, expresses certain laws and necessary 



164 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

connections which, no matter how the things in space 
may vary, ai^e always in force ; and it is, of course, true 
that the things vary in many ways in independence of 
this relation. The same general considerations apply to 
time. They appear to apply also to consciousness. If 
consciousness is defined as the relation of meaning, then 
the fact of meaning gives rise to certain necessary con- 
nections which it is the business of logic to formulate ; 
but the things related in consciousness will vary independ- 
ently of that fact. And this seems true. Call the things 
in consciousness by whatever names we please, they ap- 
pear to vary independently of the existence of conscious- 
ness. Otherwise, logic should suffice for all the materials 
of knowledge. Thus it would seem that if consciousness 
alone ceased to exist, things might still be connected in 
all their other relations. This would undoubtedly be the 
case unless the existence of consciousness were so bound 
up with the existence of all other relations that its dis- 
appearance necessarily involved theirs. In this case con- 
sciousness would appear to be the type of relation re- 
quired for a deduction of an order of relations. Yet even 
so we should still have independent variables as necessary 
constituents of this basal relation. Consciousness is, how- 
ever, apparently not of this fundamental type. Its in- 
termittent existence seems to forbid it. Of course its 
intermittent existence is not a fact in the conscious situa- 
tion ; but of course, also, there are changes in things in 
other relations, which changes do not take place in the 
conscious situation itself. We are forced, therefore, to 
distinguish between permanent, or relatively permanent, 
and intermittent relations. "Deduction" would naturally 
proceed from the more permanent relations. The problem 
thus presented may be impossible to solve, but one is 
tempted not to dismiss it without serious examination. 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 165 

Intermittent relations themselves present a variety of 
problems of peculiar interest. I shall mention only one 
of them, and this one on account of its intimate con- 
nection with the general problem of consciousness. Many 
intermittent relations — and some of the permanent ones 
too — are, so to speak, centred. Some group or some 
one of the things connected in them, is of such a charac- 
ter that its variations determine in some way the scope of 
the relations. Such centres wherever found, present prob- 
lems of special difficulty. The body, or a part of it, or a 
systematization of its parts, is sach a centre in the rela- 
tion of consciousness. I need not detail the problems 
which arise from this fact. Their solution, however, can be 
facilitated, I think, in proportion as we devote attention 
to the study of similar centres in other relations. It is not 
unlikely that they all have common features. If these 
were once discovered, the task of ascertaining their spe- 
cific features could be more readily outlined. The hope 
also may be entertained that a study of such centres and 
of the general fact of relations would yield a body of 
knowledge of wider applicability than the very narrow 
domain within which philosophers are very prone to allow 
themselves to be restricted. 

I have defined consciousness as the relation of meaning 
between things and suggested that "awareness" may be 
but another term for meaning. Yet it is apparent that 
a specific characterization of the relation consciousness 
which would helpfully distinguish it from all other rela- 
tions must be much more than a matter of names. For 
while the general characterization of consciousness as a 
relation may be a fruitful means toward philosophical 
reconstruction, its specific characterization must be thor- 
oughly worked out, if the relational theory of conscious- 
ness is to approach completeness. To assign consciousness 



166 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

to the intermittent and centred types of relation is a step 
in that direction, but this road, thoroughly traveled, may 
leave regions of investigation still untouched. The per- 
sonal and self -reflective character of consciousness, its 
privacy, its continuity, and other characters which have 
often been enumerated as its essential features, should be 
shown to be various aspects of its specific character or 
deductions from it, or to be connected with other more 
general features of the type. The specific characterization 
of space in terms of such axioms as that of free mobility 
has done much for those departments of knowledge the 
objects of which involve the space relation. We need cor- 
responding characterizations of time and consciousness 
for similar successes. 

Another group of problems is connected with a study 
of the types of synthesis which are effected in the con- 
scious relation. Indeed, some of the problems cited in 
the preceding paragraphs may belong to this group. But 
I refer here more especially to those syntheses which give 
us related or contrasted bodies of knowledge. The re- 
sults of such an examination would appear to involve a 
developed doctrine of categories, providing us with their 
enumeration, their relations, and the methods and genesis 
of their formation. The bearing of such a doctrine on 
logic and metaphysics would doubtless be far-reaching. 
Evolution as a category of wide application has familiar- 
ized us with the conception of a reality in constant pro- 
cess of transformation and reorganization. The place of 
consciousness in such a process and the conditions of its 
genesis there afford inquiries of endless interest and fas- 
cination. Indeed, if the world evolves to consciousness, 
we should have in consciousness itself the most immediate 
and significant instance of evolution, revealing what that 
process is in its most intimate and essential features. 



VI 

THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 

Edwin Lee Norton 



This paper approaches musical experience from one, 
and that an often neglected side. It is concerned, not 
with an account of all the more essential factors in mu- 
sical appreciation in their due relation to each other, but 
rather with the function of relations in the appreciative 
process, with its conceptual or universal aspects. While 
the nature of music as an art will not be forgotten, it is 
hoped to elucidate this from a particular point of view. 
Accordingly our thesis will accent musical thought rather 
than musical feeling. This may explain the apparent 
one-sidedness and intellectualism of the view that is to be 
developed. 

It is proposed to take thought in the broad sense of 
the mind's apprehension of meaning and relations, whether 
or no this is found in a developed and highly complicated 
and abstract form. This certainly is the germ of thought. 
It is presupposed that all cognition involves thinking, and 
that the cognitive aspect of a concrete process of appre- 
ciation is of aesthetic importance ; i. e. that thought has a 
function in music. One may distinguish between the logic 
of philosophic and scientific procedure as formulated in 
the text-books on deduction and induction, the logic of 
practical life found in various degrees of perfection from 
crude purposive thinking up, and the logic of aesthetic 
experience. At the same time, these have a common 



168 STUDIES m PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

ground, and a part of our aim will be to point out their 
essential similarity. 

The logical function of musical ideas is to control musi- 
cal experience, to secure appropriate reactions and reali- 
zations. The method of the readjustment of the parts 
within the whole process through the instrumentality of 
the universal is logical so far as it is adequate; it becomes 
illogical, but not alogical, through its failure. The logic 
of the experience is its universahty, its adherence to musi- 
cal law, its adequacy. Thus the rationale of appreciation 
is the doctrine of its immanent logic. Premising the prag- 
matic view of the function of knowledge, one may rightly 
speak thus of the logic of music, as of that of any con- 
crete process of experience.^ 

Musical thought exhibits different stages of develop- 
ment ranging from sensuous feeling to inference. The 
affectively toned related sensation may function as a sign 
of meanings determined in previous experience. In listen- 
ing, the perceptual phase of thought is always present. 
Concrete imagination in terms of auditory and other im- 
agery often plays a part, but thought may take a more 
abstract form. The inner connections of the music may 
be attentively observed, or the process may be one of sys- 
tematic association based on previous thought, — a pro- 
cess still purposive even if lacking conscious control. But 
whatever the structural form, the universal aspect of the 
process is of prime functional importance. As every 
relationship within or between melody, rhythm, and har- 
mony has such a universal character, then attention to 
these relations, whatever they be, is thought activity, and 
it is judgmental in function. 

• Cf. Dewey, Shulies in Logical Theory, p. 19. I am glad to acknow- 
ledge also my general indebtedness to Professor Dewey's method and point 
of view. 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 169 

A preliminary word is in order regarding the relation 
between musical appreciation and thinking. Just as logi- 
cal thought cannot ultimately be divorced from sensation, 
feeling, and action, so can the converse be maintained: 
that musical feeHng is not divorced from thought. These 
are terms in a continuity, phases of an organic process. 
No rigid line can be drawn between philosophic, religious, 
and aesthetic contemplation, as is evidenced by the imagina- 
tive views of Plato and many another poet-metaphysician. 
Contemplation may be discursive as well as intuitive. If 
the function of thought is confined to the determination 
of the relations within the ideal musical world, such dis- 
interested practical play of the mind is certainly sesthetic; 
it is an attempt more explicitly to realize the ideal com- 
pleteness of the art object. 

Musical value is found neither in mere affective quality 
nor in mere sensation, nor in mere emotion ; these are signs, 
materials, or summaries of a value greater than they. 
Musical value is not merely immediate, nor is it consti- 
tuted and finished once for all. It is rather a process as 
continual and unceasing as the music; it is progressively 
determined and in part constituted by intellectual media- 
tion. 

Before entering upon our main theme we should notice 
the contrast between the implied and the explicated aspects 
of musical thought. Universal relationships and meanings 
are sometimes assumed or taken for granted as far as 
their determinate character is concerned; or again they 
are merely suggested rather than clearly grasped and 
given explicit statement in the mind. Every one admits 
the prominence of this suggestive phase of art, especially 
of music ; but its logical import is seldom recognized. 

Two chief functions of the implications of musical 
thought may be distinguished, retrospective and prospec- 



170 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

tive reference. On the one hand there are assumptions 
of meanings that were developed and explicitly realized in 
previous time ; on the other there are suggestions of mean- 
ings not yet determined by attentive scrutiny. All thought 
has its familiar and novel aspects, either of which may 
be in a measure implied, and either such implication may be 
a means of controlling the development of the other ; i. e, 
its enrichment and better accommodation to the total situ- 
ation. 

The last sentence indicates why the implicit element 
may have logical value. Its ability to control the appre- 
ciative process and to realize the meaning of past or 
future in their connection with the present, is based upon 
its felt power of substitution. In the emergence of the 
explicit from the implicit or vice versa, the product is 
significant because it represents portions of the previous 
process. In thus pointing beyond itself, the implicit has 
vicarious value and is conceptual in function. So it may 
serve to develop, define, and refine the sesthetic suscepti- 
bility. 

The influence of harmony on melody may be cited as 
an illustration of the logical value of the implicit factor. 
In many instances, such as the Pilgrims' Chorus from 
"Tannhauser" and Schubert's "Am Meer, " the thought 
impHcations determine for the appreciator the nature of 
the melody; for this would be very different without his 
vague feeling of its harmonic setting, whether this ac- 
companiment is a part of the actual presentation or only 
tends to an imaginative revival. If a melody has been 
learned first without the accompaniment designed for it, 
the latter may be found objectionable. One may resent 
its determinations as making changes that, according to 
one's previous conception of the melody, ought not to be 
permitted in its intrinsic relations. Such was the history 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 171 

of the writer's acquaintance with Jensen's '' Lehn' deine 
Wang'." In such a case the introduction of the harmony 
causes a psychical disturbance whose logical import is the 
tendency to remodel either the objective composition as 
regards its harmony or the subjective appreciation of its 
melodic meaning. 

II 

Musical concepts are general ideas or notions that spring 
from the concrete experience of music, are gradually sys- 
tematized in musical theory, and thus become a source 
of further deductions in the intellectual world as well as 
instruments of practical guidance in musical activity. A 
variety of examples will now be described and classified, 
for this seems to be the most illuminating approach to the 
subject. The examples will be given without observing 
any special distinction between the more explicit and the 
less consciously developed concepts. It is not contended 
that they are all clearly present in the ordinary musical 
experience. But assuming their compatibility, when thus 
developed, with musical activity, they deserve notice under 
the general caption of concepts. 

Music has three aspects, three sources of value, known 
as material, form, and expression, and in different degrees 
these are conditions of our reacting toward stimulation 
as musical. The primary logical division is that between 
the musical and the non-musical world. So tone as op- 
posed to noise ; organic combination in accordance with 
musical law as contrasted with either the isolated element 
or mere incoherent juxtaposition ; vitality, soul, and asso- 
ciative value (whether personal or objective) as opposed 
to mechanical deadness or emotional indifference, — these 
three are among the most general musical concepts. The 
inner constitution of each one involves more than the 



172 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

mere abstract common element ; each involves a tendency 
to differentiation ; the concept of form implies types of 
form and details of musical law ; that of expression implies 
modes of expression, etc. This remark holds good through 
the whole list of concepts that are to be noticed, which, 
by the way, fall mainly under the category of form or 
structure. 

A highly systematic concept is exemplified by the 
musical scale. In this notion, abstraction is made from 
rhythm and all other features of concrete music save 
melody and harmony, so as to effect an arrangement in 
serial order of all those relative pitches which are avail- 
able as musical material. The use of this concept accord- 
ing to musical laws reveals its nature, which is further 
specified in part through the three important notions of 
distance, direction, and melodic relation or affinity. These 
are all relational concepts ; but in its higher development 
and taken psychologically, distance is a quantitative 
determination of relation, while in direction and affinity 
relation remains a simple quality. 

Any tone in a melody, as regards its mere pitch, then, 
is conceived as part of this complex system and as having 
a locus determined by it. For first, it has a place in the 
ascending-descending series, separated by a definite inter- 
val from other known tones. And second, it has a recog- 
nized and distinct affinity for one or other of these tones. 
Here its relation to the tonic is the most important con- 
ceptual feature of the system. In any phase of musical 
activity, whether composition, performance, or apprecia- 
tion, the use of the scale concept consists in its enabling 
one to pass in an orderly fashion, involving on the whole 
a minimum of groping and of friction (so far as is 
consistent with realizing the various particular logical 
moments involved in musical and aesthetic activity), from 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 173 

any one point to another in the series. Of course some 
friction is present in all readaptation, and is at the basis 
of all sesthetic consciousness and particularly of those 
logical meanings so essential in musical structure. The 
nature of the " orderly fashion " of transitions is deter- 
mined by the subordinate concepts, distance, direction, 
and relation, under the control of higher esthetic laws. 

While the locus of a tone is definite, this is not con- 
ceived as a mathematical point in a line, but as a place 
of possible variation between limits almost indistinguish- 
able. Within such limits, points are taken as equivalent. 
The scale in its essential features as just described is 
indifferent also to absolute pitch ; all that the concept 
requires is a systematic adjustment of part to part within 
the whole. Therefore we speak of one and the same 
melody as being sung in different pitches, since the sys- 
tematic relationships are the same in the two cases. But 
when such a recurrence of the melody is within one mu- 
sical whole, the concept of modulation or of a dependent 
melody must be introduced to signify that we have two 
equivalent systems of relations focused about different 
points which are themselves related. This is like a play 
within a play, or a dream that one is dreaming. The con- 
cept of variation within limits is for application system- 
atized in the scale of equal temperament, and this it is 
that makes possible a recognition of the melody's broader 
external relationships, and permits us still within an ex- 
tended composition to admit the two melodies as identical. 

Rhythm is a systematic concept in which the princi- 
ple of equivalence is important. The musical movement 
is divided into successive parts, measures or fractions 
thereof, and each part has vicarious value, being capable 
of substitution for any other part of the same rhythmic 
grade. Thus measure is equivalent to measure, or eighth 



174 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

note to its fellow. Even the stressed tones that mark the 
rhythm are equivalent to the unstressed, for the accent 
can be shifted to a novel position, as exhibited in synco- 
pation, in which beat and stress are at variance. As the 
scale is primarily concerned with relative rather than with 
absolute pitches, so to rhythm the absolute point of stress 
is of less importance than is the regular recurrence of 
stress. A melody may or may not begin on the accented 
beat ; and of its various phrases, some may begin one way 
and some the other. A measure is capable of extended 
division and subdivision after such manner as to render 
four eighth notes equivalent to a half note in the rhythmic 
figure, or vice versa. Measure is a proper substitute for 
measure, whatever its complexity or simplicity, through- 
out the one melody. Thus the principle of rhythm is the 
recurrence, according to a regular abstract order, of 
stimulations or groups of stimulations. 

However, rhythm is not identical with tempo, for either 
may change while the other remains the same ; nor does 
its equivalence amount to mathematical equality, though 
rhythmic figure has a mathematical as well as a psycho- 
logical basis. While the numbers indicating rhythmic 
divisions signify relative durations, the demands of ex- 
pression interfere with their accurate observance. Every 
measure or rhythmical unit begins with a beat, a regularly 
recurrent and significant pulsation, but the bearer of this 
significance, the mark of the principal rhythmic division, 
need not always be the same kind of content. Very fre- 
quently it is stress on the first tone of the beat, increased 
intensity of attack. But it may consist in the lengthened 
relative duration of this first tone at the expense of those 
directly following it, a just perceptible variation from the 
equality of the fractional parts of the rhythmic unit. Of 
course either of these methods occasionally may come into 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 175 

conflict with expressional devices. The latter one is said 
to have been used and taught very effectively by the 
violinist Joachim. 

All rhythm both embodies and meets the requisite that 
the various phases of a process should come at the right 
time. It seems to be the simplest solution of that need 
become an objective demand. In the broader life of hu- 
manity our various modes of measuring time are regula- 
tors of activity, important instruments in the process of 
socializing behavior, which aid (though they do not re- 
quire) rhythmic and concerted action. In proportion as 
one's mode of daily life is rhythmic can his habits agree 
with those of others ; he becomes able to eat, work, play, 
and sleep when others do. So in music, while there is an 
individual, organic, and aesthetic basis for rhythm, the 
teleology controlling its early development has been largely 
social, either because of the connection of song with group 
work or the dance, or because of the need of a unifying 
factor in purely musical ensemble performance. Appar- 
ently, then, as a quantitative, mathematical concept, its 
demands would be best satisfied by complete mechaniza- 
tion. As it is indispensable that we live by the clock, 
should not musical thought and practice be regulated by 
the metronome ? 

I believe that' life and music are in this respect quite 
analogous, and that here music may be taken as symbolic 
of life. An erroneous view of the subject is due wholly 
to neglect of essential factors, to one-sidedness. The above 
discussion makes patent the presence in the function of 
the rhythmic concept of a dialectic between subjective 
and objective values, between individual and social needs, 
and between the demands of expression and of form. But 
the two sets of values or needs must be harmonized, for 
each value positively involves the other. Music is to a 



176 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

great extent a social phenomenon, and a performer, in 
order to make a piece comprehensible to hearers, must 
not only phrase and accent carefully, but must approach 
in his rendering" the ideal of equality between durations ; 
only thus can the composer and himself express them- 
selves and human life through the music. Regular rates 
of acceleration or retardation are quite compatible Tvith 
this, and any other temporal changes that leave one in 
no doubt as to the relation between stresses ; but spas- 
modic playing is rarely legitimate. The notion of varia- 
tion within limits applies even more patently here than 
to pitch. The limits are determined by the relation that 
must obtain between subjective stresses and objective 
durations. For these must in all cases correspond. Mea- 
sured durations are the chief counters by means of which 
feelings of relative stress can be communicated. Objec- 
tive stress is another means, but its use is more often 
interfered with either by the complexity of rhythmic figure 
or by the demands of expression. The relative durations 
are then to be regarded as the equivalents of subjective 
rhythmic feelings, and as the proper substitutes for them. 
It may be a fact that one with a good time sense often 
has a poor sense for rhythm, or vice versa; but this is not 
the musical ideal. 

The distinction between individual and general con- 
cepts should be illustrated. Under the former falls the 
idea of any particular motive or phrase as this identical 
self-subsistent wdiole. Among the constituents of such 
an idea are certain universal qualities of the object. The 
functioning of such an idea is seen in memory and recog- 
nition, and in a judgment of value about the object. 
One has a general concept when some aspect of a con- 
crete movement, possibly shared by other movements, is 
noticed or becomes an important feature in interpretation. 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 177 

— when, for instance, a melodic or harmonic relation, 
abstracted from its setting in tone color and rhythm, is 
taken as a type and identified in various contexts. 

Certain concepts are of great importance for guidance, 
particularly in performance, but also in the other phases 
of musical activity. Consider how important for inter- 
pretation is the constant functioning of the sense for the 
keynote ; the feeling of what the main rhythm is, how- 
ever disguised (for instance the 2/4 figure), and the rela- 
tive tempo (e. g, an accelerando in allegro) ; an idea of 
the style (as cantabile or pizzicato), or of the dynamic 
continuity or change (e. g. constant pianissimo, or cres- 
cendo and alternate accents). Notice that among the 
manifold possible characteristics of musical progression, 
certain ones are found sometimes together, sometimes 
separate. This not only makes possible the development 
of the distinct concepts, but their origin is due to the 
need that the tendencies and habitual reactions from 
which they spring should be differentiated and better 
adapted. Thus the temporal and dynamic changes just 
mentioned may be quite distinct, and there may be need 
to resist a tendency to interpret accelerando also as cres- 
cendo. The fact that many aspects of musical movement 
are indicated in the score by words shows their conceptual 
nature ; for pitch and rhythm are not the whole of music. 
At the same time it is the least complex, intricate, and 
intellectual aspects of the music for which these directive 
words stand ; and the comparative absence of words, 
whether on the score or in the auditor's mind, to express 
the most essentially structural side of music should not 
blind one to its intellectual nature any more than the use 
of signs in algebra. 

To the hearer such guiding concepts are none the less 
of value though words may not arise as their symbols, 



178 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

though one could not give them a technical explication, 
and though they may never function save in the presence 
of positive or negative examples. The activity of one of 
them (e. g, the tonic feeling) not only aids in the apper- 
ception of this special feature of the music, but within 
certain limits helps the mind grasp the whole movement. 
Yet it is true that too keen a sense for one feature, like 
rhythm, may interfere, not perhaps with an easy reaction, 
but with a discriminative, objectively valid reaction to the 
complex object. Some of these concepts aid one in storing 
in mind subtle and not readily describable characteristics 
of a piece which become important logical factors in one's 
assessment of its value, though they are not made abstract 
objects. One may feel the pizzicato accompaniment by the 
orchestra as having a peculiar fitness, without contrasting 
it with the absent legato; or a passage may be noticed as 
an unaccelerated crescendo in that it is noticed as it is in 
its wholeness. 

The description of guiding concepts has more than 
once suggested and illustrated the last group to be dealt 
with, that of abstract musical outlines. A concrete musi- 
cal progression may be viewed as the vital union of differ- 
ent aspects (this does not refer to stages or brief portions) 
of the movement, which are in themselves not music, and 
which may, whether in whole or in part, be embodied in 
other pieces. There are outlines of the first and of the 
second degree. (1) Principal outlines are illustrated by 
abstracting any one of the following aspects completely 
from a musical whole, be it long or short, — melody, har- 
monic accompaniment, rhythm, tempo, and dynamic fea- 
tures. Each of these is an abstract though fairly particu- 
lar form. If it be long, it will be proportionately vague 
and uncertain and, like a long piece of music, capable 
of thorough comprehension only by its serial expansion. 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 179 

Such expansion will either reveal the inadequacies of the 
outline concept or, in case tendencies to error are readily 
checked, show its perfection. (2) The subordinate outlines 
are abstractions from the principal ones, and are instanced 
by the following discriminations : In melody one can ab- 
stract a theme out of the body of its variations, and in 
general can distinguish the essentially structural portion 
from the ornamental, though where the line should be 
drawn is often theoretically uncertain. Trills, turns, grace 
notes, often accidentals, can sometimes be ranked as or- 
naments. When dependent melodies are incorporated in 
the melody of the primary tonic, the different melodies 
thus interwoven can to some extent be discriminated, cer- 
tainly in study. In harmony, crucial chords and changes 
can be detected which give special significance to their 
context. The distinction of the separate melodies in a 
piece of polyphony by Bach would yield outlines of this 
order, or of the first; for each outline here is more indi- 
vidual (at least in its union with rhythm) than most of the 
subordinate outlines. Finally, the main rhythmic outline 
may be abstracted from its complications, divisions, and 
details; also differences of rhythm connected with the 
component melodies of polyphony, as in syncopation when 
the absolute accents of the parts do not concur, or in 
case of duple rhythm in one part and triple in another. 
Such a distinction of rhythm also makes it easier to dis- 
tinguish the melodic components in polyphony. 

It must be admitted that to insist on the constant pre- 
sence in the hearer's mind of a great variety of such out- 
lines as structural existents would both do violence to the 
psychological facts and tend to sacrifice the aesthetic for 
an intellectual attitude to music. The objector puts two 
questions : (1) Are musical outhnes either a fact or a 
possibility in the auditor as such ? and if so, (2) are they 



180 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

of any utility to appreciation ? A single answer, however, 
will suffice for both questions ; since if such phenomena 
had no valid function within the art, we can be sure they 
would have no existence there, generally speaking ; their 
usual presence would be a pretty good indication of their 
usefulness. Now there is no doubt that when one is not 
in the aesthetic attitude, all the concepts described and 
many more are possible constructions. Nor is there any 
doubt that some of these products of intellectual study 
serve to enrich the subsequent enjoyment of music. Both 
their importance and the ease of their formation vary, and 
not always concomitantly. In the more complex and in- 
tellectual forms of music, melody may be a more impor- 
tant feature than rhythm, at least it is not inferior to it. 
But rhythm is more readily treated as an abstract outline 
than is melody, and for two reasons : melody is employed 
only in music, while rhythm is embodied in various other 
activities ; and again, melody naturally seeks a rhythmic 
embodiment. The latter reason implies that all music is 
rhythmical, and is therefore weakened by the undoubted 
fact of a class of arhythmical music, in which either har- 
mony substitutes for rhythm as a unifying factor (as in the 
chorals of the Middle Ages), or strict musical form is sac- 
rificed to expression (as in the recitative). Dynamic form 
is an example of a feature somewhat readily abstracted by 
the hearer. It is true the rhythm is apt to adhere to it, for 
rhythm tends more than any other feature to interjDene- 
trate the whole movement. Still the dynamic values may 
he noticeably felt for themselves, since they correspond to 
typical forms of emotional manifestation and in a sense 
express spiritual life in the abstract. For the same reason 
the dynamic outlines as well as the rhythmic are of real 
aesthetic utility. 

When on the one hand a critic denies the value of mu- 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 181 

sical outlines as well as of the theoretical training that 
might foster them, and on the other hand insists that mu- 
sical value is based on structure and therefore that the 
active attitude, which makes an effort to grasp and master 
the object, is superior to the passive one, in which the 
auditor is overwhelmed by the mere stimulation in its 
quality and mass, — this looks like a contradiction, though 
its author may regard it as only a difference of stress and 
of degree. Of the two attitudes, the active involves rela- 
tively more intellect, the passive more emotion. But all 
intellection involves abstraction of some kind and degree ; 
it implies tracing the relations which constitute an object. 
One's attentive efforts cannot well be concerned with mere 
feeling ; they have to do rather with the structural con- 
tent of music. 

Music is a concrete organic form, of course, and not 
a mechanical union, effected by the composer, of mere 
abstractions. It follows that esthetic pleasure, in the 
narrow sense, is conditioned by the perception of the 
unique individual unity. And no doubt this helps explain 
why one who goes to music for enjoyment fails to notice 
some abstract likenesses between different pieces which 
are patent to the curious scrutiny of the student, for their 
interests differ. It is true that the phases of music are 
wholly transformed through their artistic union, that the 
abstract, as such, does not exist in the concrete, and that 
analysis in this field, as throughout mental life, involves 
in some sense the destruction of the original unity. But 
here the real test and criterion of the value of analysis 
reveals itself. Esthetic validity belongs to such abstract 
analysis as tends to produce a new sense of concrete unity 
and beauty enriched because altered by this very process 
from a relatively simple unity into a complex totality. 
The totality, whatever its structure and however ecstatic 



182 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

its emotion, embodies the significance of previous unities, 
Avhetber or not these were appreciated sestheticallj at the 
moment of their psychic existence. 

In a musical composition of any length, every phrase 
of independent beauty can be appreciated as it passes. 
But it is not absolutely independent, and further beauty 
is revealed when one detects the connecting links between 
the smaller units. Their significant similarity in melodic 
movement is often connected with rhythmic differences. 
Plenty of instances of this kind could be pointed out in 
modern music. The danger to enjoyment here is not from 
analysis, for this decidedly helps, but from want of syn- 
thesis. There is no appreciation of music whatever that 
does not alter the given beauty and transform the stimu- 
lus. Even the unity of the brief phrase is not merely 
given but in part constructed by the auditor ; and in rela- 
tion to this phrase the aesthetic moment j^^ar excellence, 
the emotional sense of its unity and meaning, is not in 
its appearance strictly concomitant with the developing 
objective unity. This means that even within these nar- 
row limits of duration the mind must do some work with- 
out immediate returns. And how much more is this true 
in proportion as the unity is long and complex ! To sup- 
pose that every instant of this development must be char- 
acterized by heightened emotion is absurd, and to deny 
that those more intellectual instants, when the mind is 
scrutinizing and meeting a problem, are an essential por- 
tion of the aesthetic attitude as a process, seems arbitrary. 

By way of caution it should be added that the question 
regarding outlines is not only whether their content is a 
set of images filling out a particular melodic, rhythmic, 
or dynamic form, but also whether such outlines function 
as controlling factors and often as conscious checks, 
whether their meaning is embodied in more or less con- 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 183 

scious habits. Cases of conflicting or divergent associa- 
tion are best explained by recognizing such habit units in 
the total complex. When two phrases are identical in all 
respects save dynamic quality, the first being forte and 
the second diminuendo, the tendency is to make the sec- 
ond an exact repetition of the first as long as the habits 
are not differentiated, and this may depend on observing 
certain differences in context which make a demand for 
dynamic change. The fault is readily corrected when the 
dynamic outline (always in some of its connections, part 
of which are relevant and part irrelevant) is given suffi- 
cient attention and so readapted. 

Both the importance and the possibility of outlines is 
exhibited by a common and useful method of teaching 
music to children, according to which the pupils are to 
study the verses, rhythm, and melody of a new song sepa- 
rately. They swing or beat out the rhythm or embody 
it in monotone. The melody is studied by reading and 
practicing the various intervals and transitions therein 
involved with frequent explicit reference to the scale. 
It may surprise some to find how much of the spirit of 
aesthetic or artistic joy children can bring to such exer- 
cises, but this need not be insisted upon as a condition of 
the value of their abstraction. In giving attention to each 
feature separately, qualitative concepts are developed. 
Thus habits are formed without clashing, which in ma- 
turer experience function largely without being con- 
sciously distinguished ; yet their constant recombination 
implies the universal. 

In the mode of formation of musical concepts two ex- 
tremes may be remarked: (1) (a) When most explicit 
there is a comparison of different cases and abstrac- 
tion of their common element. The data are really certain 
habits of reaction raised into consciousness by the stim- 



184 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

ulus of some need, and the result is not only a new or a 
modified concept, but a judgment, (b) A variant mode is 
when there is an attentive scrutiny of one case and ab- 
straction of its interesting feature, which is later discov- 
ered in or applied to other cases. (2) At the other extreme, 
differentiation and assimilation on the plane of habit ac- 
count for the growth of a conceptual function. But not 
only may this come into clear consciousness at a later 
stage (the apparent beginning of the concept in (b) ), but 
a slight conscious guidance must be assumed at the time 
of each adjustment in the process of development. 

Similarly, the mode in which these concepts function 
varies between two limits : unconscious habit, or the maxi- 
mum of adaptedness, and purely theoretical abstract judg- 
ment, representing the maximum felt need of readaptation 
and systematic attempt to that end. Neither extreme has 
much of any place in appreciation, but there is a nearer 
approach to the habit side. The conceptual function is 
stimulated by musical examples ; and when there is clear 
conception at the time of listening it is usually due to 
some structural device that attracts the attention from its 
familiarity or novelty or difficulty, for the familiar or re- 
iterated may readily provoke the question whi/. Thus the 
occurrence of the scale form as a melodic motive, the 
repeated indication of the keynote (or sometimes its con- 
cealment by strange transitions), and some striking alter- 
ation of the rhythmic figure may serve as stimuli. Indeed 
various emotional interests may help attract conceptual 
attention to structure. 

Ill 

In tliis section certain phases of musical conception 
that have already been suggested must be discussed. The 
following closely related questions will require attention : 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 185 

(1) What is the place of imagery, and (2) what the place 
of feeling and habit in musical conception? (3) Are 
these concepts concrete or abstract? and (4) qualitative 
or quantitative? (5) What is the difference between 
thinking in and thinking about music? and (6) is musi- 
cal thought to be characterized as immediate or mediate ? 
1. A study, impossible in this article, of the psycho- 
logical and logical problems of correct intonation would 
show that the significance and the actual content of a 
tone are not always in precise agreement ; that a correct 
image need not be substituted for a false pitch in order 
that its musical connections be duly appreciated; and 
that one and the same content may in some cases have 
two different meanings that are both valid, a case some- 
what analogous to the figure of speech or the pun. Yet 
obviously there is a limit to this possible discrepancy 
between structure and function. Again, it was pointed out 
above that the functioning of guiding concepts and of 
musical outlines and the process of recognition through 
these and other concepts do not demand the presence of 
a tonal image or series of images. For instance, it is said 
that a given melody may have a primary tonic though 
such a tonic is not found as one of the actual series of 
presented pitches ; for in this case the tones that are pre- 
sented invoke the musical imagination, working according 
to the laws of musical structure, to supply the missing 
tonic. If this means a demand, not to correct the intona- 
tion of the tone which purports to stand for the tonic, 
but to fill out through imagination a scale position unoc- 
cupied during the progress of the melody, it is doubtful 
whether actual music demands this of the listener. In 
other words, it is doubtful whether any melody which is 
felt as complete, unitary, and beautiful essentially depends 
upon and implies a fundamental tone that pretends to no 



186 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

place in its structure. But if the proposed theory be ad- 
mitted, it is then unnecessary to posit the existence of 
atonic melodies whose adequate musical meaning does 
not depend upon the reference of all its tones to one 
and the same fundamental.^ No decision of this question 
is here offered. But we would suggest that if a melody 
has a tonicj whether actually given or only implied in its 
structure, the appreciation of the tonic's value at any 
time does not depend upon the presence of any vivid 
auditory image of it. 

A recent experimental study on tonal images and judg- 
ments has some bearing upon our musical problem." A 
few conclusions of this research may here be cited : (a) 
The auditory image is but a part of the memory image of 
tone ; it is supplemented by images from other modalities. 
[b) The auditory image wanes after two seconds and 
may be gone at sixty seconds, (c) The supplementary 
images may aid as identifying marks when the auditory 
core has disappeared. Judgments of identity or differ- 
ence between pitches may thus (d) be independent of the 
presence of any auditory image, or (e) be aided by an un- 
noticed auditory image, as in assimilative recognition ; 
or (/) be quite dependent upon a clear auditory image. 
" The deliberate use of the image as a standard of com- 
parison is a more complicated device, a roundabout path 
indicative of obstacles, uncertainty, and hesitancy,^' and 
its results are comparatively uncertain. 

It should be remarked that in such experiments as 
yield these conclusions the conditions are made very 
simple, while in musical experience they are very com- 
plex ; that much finer sensory discriminations are called 

^ Meyer asserts the existence of such atonic melody. Cf. his Contributions 
to a Psychological Theory of Mucic. 

2 Cf. Whipple, in American Journal of Psychology f\oU. xii, xiii. 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 187 

for in the experiments than in ordinary musical experience ; 
and that the purpose of the experiments is to examine 
and test an intellectual function, while musical thought 
aims at a higher realization of aesthetic values. Thus the 
two cases are not quite parallel. Thought having imme- 
diate value function is more apt to employ imagery, other 
conditions being equal. The constant presentation of new 
auditory sensations in music tends to strengthen and pro- 
long the life of those images, such as the tonic, which 
have the most intimate and numerous connections with 
the new material ; while in the competition other images, 
in proportion as their meaning is subordinate in the mel- 
ody, are driven from the field. This remark applies rather 
to single images than to series or groups, for the con- 
scious significance either of a phrase or of a melodic 
outline may be great though its foundation in imagery is 
very apt to be absent. On the same principle climactic 
tones and tones important as transition points tend to be 
strengthened, within certain limits, as images. 

Conclusion (/) above shows that in music images are 
more prominent when one's attitude is questioning, when 
values are not well ascertained. In proportion as certain 
connections of pitch are familiar and no difficulty is felt 
about them, clear images would drop out. Even here, 
however, it should be remembered that the attitude of the 
musician (value-searching and finding) tends to sift out 
his imagery and to strengthen much of it because it 
is a sign of value ; i» e. musical habituation may involve 
a deepening of the value-searching consciousness and a 
strengthening of overt memory, and not a mere elimina- 
tion of images. 

The need of auditory imagery when musical thought 
is especially problematic is exemplified in one's early 
attempt fully to appreciate a harmonized melody from the 



ISS STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

score without rendering it on an instrument. Whether 
one hums, whistles, or sings the air, or attempts a quite 
silent reading, there is a demand for the simultaneous 
imagery of two or more tones. At one stage of practice, 
at least, the musical values are not realized through visual 
attention to the flotation, however active thought may he 
in tracing relationships. One must hear with the mental 
ear the entire musical structure. As this feat, even in case 
of the simplest harmonies, may be at first a difficult one, 
a keen activity of other senses, visual and kinsesthetic, 
may be called forth as associative supports of auditory 
imagery; and appeal may be made to the device of a 
rapid succession of tones as a substitute for their strict 
simultaneity, until by the aid of incipient movements of 
execution the right auditory imagery may be aroused and 
established. As time goes on, some of the motor and kin- 
sesthetic elements may be eliminated, until auditory images 
are more directly excited by the visual stimuli. Whether 
for some temperaments and at a later stage of maturity mu- 
sical satisfaction might be independent of any immediate 
auditory content, either of sensation or of image, cannot 
be positively asserted ; but it is conceivable that the visual 
symbols might arouse such a rich intellectual content (the 
insight into musical structure) as to awaken the aesthetic 
sense of value. 

It is no doubt true ^ that, other things being equal, the 
intensity of emotion decreases as percepts and images give 
place to abstract concepts. But this does not deny that a 
steady interest and a quiet sentiment may attend the less 
imaginative type of thinking which, because of the keen- 
ness of abstract insight, may at intervals be reinforced by 
strong emotional thrills. Nor can it be denied that this 
type of feeling may be aesthetic. 

1 Cf. Ribot, Psychology of the Emotions^ English translation, p. 317. 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 189 

2. Enough has been said above under the topics of the 
formation and functioning of concepts and the condi- 
tions under which musical imagery is employed to show 
that the habit aspect of thought is prominent in music. 
Indeed, every concept is an expression of habit or its 
readjustment, while every habit embodies the value of a 
conce]3t. It must not be supposed that habit means ahvays 
the elimination of high types of consciousness. There are 
habits of feeling or thinking as well as of movement. A 
concept is a complex affair, having its novel and its familiar 
aspects ; and it may at once occupy part of one's atten- 
tive interest and extend its roots down into the depths of 
that marginal region dominated by subconscious habit. 
In listening to music the attention is not occupied solely 
by auditory sensations -, it is their combination that is 
striking for its novelty, its strangeness, its beauty, its ex- 
emplification of this or that principle or meaning. This 
combination is an objectified and individualized concept, 
and its appreciation involves the conceptional function ; 
that is, the adaptation of a habit to a particular case. The 
combination is not a mere physical datum, but is depend- 
ent on organic and mental conditions. Even when long 
familiarity has shaped one's reaction to it into a specific 
habit, it is, as it were, a physiological assumption which 
remains to be tested by each new case ; and the feeling 
of the test is a conceptual feeling, as is also the resulting 
satisfaction. 

That which functions conceptually in appreciation is 
thus a habit, an apperceptive mass, a subjective generic 
form correspondent to the form of combination objectified 
in the music. This form or habit may be structurally com- 
posed, in part at least, of (a) musical imagery, auditory, 
kinaesthetic, or visual ; (h) extra-musical ideas, verbal or 
concrete ; (c) feeling or emotion, including pleasure, pain. 



190 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

and feelings of tendency or activity; or {d) as activity it 
may be the subconscious aspect of the appreciative process 
and so far forth structurally indescribable. 

It has been shown above that the concept may involve 
a feeling of tendency in a certain direction, a feeling of the 
limit of such musical movement, and a feeling of possible 
variation within limits. The relation of a pitch to the 
tonic, the shake, and all variation from correct intonation 
may be examples. When there is a feeling of tendency 
its direction need not be abstractly defined as up or down, 
toward or away from, increase of complexity or resolution 
into simpler harmony, in order that it be a concept; the 
nature of the strain sensations and other feelings con- 
stituting it may suffice to differentiate it and render it 
more than a mere vague, meaningless feeling. So, too, 
its limits need not be imaged in advance ; if felt at the 
right moment as either resting-points or counter tenden- 
cies, the concept is thus defined. 

3. The distinction was above made between the indi- 
vidual concept, as of this unique melody, and the uni- 
versal concept, exemplified when some genetic feature or 
outline is abstracted from the total musical movement. 
But the distinction that now concerns us is that between 
a narrower and a broader view of the very nature of 
music. The one would regard musical appreciation as 
an isolated activity of the mind whose sole content and 
meaning consists in tones and their relations ; the other 
views it as continuous with human life at large and in 
significant connection therewith. So two contrasting theo- 
ries are found in musical aesthetics : (a) that of the intel- 
lectual formalist and (b) that of the idealist or symbolist. 
For the latter, music has extra-musical values and expres- 
sive powers. Tones in their structural relationships have 
vicarious value; they stand for spiritual relationships. But 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 191 

these are of a general and abstract kind, and therefore 
not readily or adequately to be stated in linguistic terms. 
From this point of view music is the pure form of our 
inner hfe. This bare form is objectified in tonal material 
and thus given an artistic value. But as appreciated it is 
apperceived by subjective forms in the hearer's mental 
make-up, forms which, as compared with the objective 
forms, may have a different concrete filling of visual and 
other imagery and a broader meaning. Auditory sensa- 
tions are but a fraction of the richness of our inner life ; 
yet, when combined according to the universal laws of 
the mind, they function as substitutes or symbols and 
serve to arouse further mental content. 

" To think concretely is to represent general relations 
as embodied in particular instances ; " ^ or in a related 
sense, it is to think reality or real objects in their whole- 
ness, and not sacrifice this to some one or more important 
aspects. 

a. Now for the musical formalist the standard of 
concreteness is the whole unique piece of music viewed 
as a complex of tones in various relations. Judged by 
this criterion, he thinks abstractly in proportion as his 
attention isolates some one feature like the rhythm, which 
may also have a universal character. But since, whether 
as performer or listener, he will in the main regard this 
feature as embodied in the given instance, since tone still 
remains the substance and material of his thought, it is 
to that extent concrete. 

h. For the symbolist, on the other hand, the standard 
of concreteness is found in human experience at large or 
the nature of spirit. The structure of music embodies 
universal relations that obtain through all experience. 
Under this test musical thought is concrete only in case 

^ Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy, article "Concrete." 



192 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

of a complete fusion of the subjective mood and imagery 
with the objectively given movement, only when the pre- 
sentation has as its subjective aspect an insight into and 
feeling for the richness of life. But the presentation may 
be distinguished as a system of signs, a language which 
stands primarily for a system of abstract relations. In 
the more introspective and reflective hearing of music, 
then, one may devote attention to this language and its 
abstract meaning ; or, on the other hand, the mind may 
be given up to the mere subjective play of feeling and 
imagery, abandoning all notice of the musical movement 
and structure. In both the latter cases thought is abstract 
according to the standard of the idealist. 

4. In order further to determine the nature of musical 
concepts, a distinction should be drawn between {a) popu- 
lar, ih) scientific, and (c) aesthetic concepts, which may 
reveal also the relative place of qualitative and quantita- 
tive determinations in musical thought. 

a. The popular concept is above all practical ; it has 
reference to the action of one's self or others or to those 
phenomena in the Avorld which manifestly affect us ; it is 
thus often embodied in plan or purpose. At the same 
time, it may be so related to individual satisfaction as to 
have an sesthetic as well as a moral value. Among its 
constituents are images, qualitative relations, feelings, and 
value attitudes, so far as these serve to mediate the appro- 
priate reactions ; but these become gradually supplemented 
by ideas of quantitative relations. It exhibits different 
stages of development. For instance, in the popular con- 
cept of the color red, the experience or object is at first 
relatively unanalyzed. Red is a unique quality, though 
regarded as one of the class color. It is itself a class idea, 
denoting any of the various shades or tints of red ; and 
each of these is a unique quality, though all together are 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 193 

capable of a serial arrangement in which indefinite ideas 
of more and less early play a part. At a higher stage 
there is a more definite determination of the serial order 
as quantitative by reference to a standard series of objec- 
tive color tones as a pattern. The number of members in 
such a series may be arbitrary, but by reference to it any 
new instance of red would receive a numerical status. 
There may further develop a quantitative concept of the 
causes and relations of any specific qualitative effect, by 
reference either to the mode of mixing paints, etc., or to 
the extent of red space which will have a desired effect. 
While through such means the general concept gains in 
specification, yet in itself red is still taken as a unique 
quality. 

6. The scientific concept functions immediately to 
enable the intellect to classify and explain the fact, e. g. 
red, in the most universal manner, to grasp it along with 
other facts in the most comprehensive and unitary system. 
Its ultimate function, however, is to make possible a more 
adequate control of the reactions of humanity to the phe- 
nomenon ; i. e. it is the function of the popular concept 
perfected. Nor is the distinction betw^een the scientific 
and the practical attitudes or methods rigid. Already in 
the latter we have seen a growing analysis of the crude 
whole of experience into aspects, and therefore some ab- 
straction from the immediate felt value of the total. Such 
analysis and abstraction are in the scientific concept more 
extreme and disinterested, yet while the effort is made to 
keep personal bias and feeling out of its structure, it 
tacitly assumes its adaptation to the essential needs of 
humanity. Such a theoretical notion shows the common 
ground of red and other colors and finally other kinds of 
quality, such as sound, in reducing their differences to 
quantitative, measurable differences in a mode of motion. 



194 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOOY 

It thus substitutes a formula for a set of images and feel- 
ings. But all qualities and values are not eliminated from 
the formula. For both the ultimate units assumed in the 
scientific account and their orderly relation or unity are 
qualitative. While their relations have become measura- 
ble, such measuring means a checking of one qualitative 
experience by another taken as a standard. Indeed the 
aim of the abstraction is in part a more adequate valuation 
and feeling. So the scientific definition of the predicate 
(as red) will in the end be able to contribute to and de- 
termine the value of the subject (red objects in human 
experience). 

c. The function of the aesthetic concept in its primary 
forms is to secure an immediate satisfaction ; it involves a 
minimum of the feeling of tension with law or standard. 
In its later developments this felt tension may be a factor, 
when the concept's function is to comprehend, secure, and 
enrich an effect which without the aid of more elaborate 
concepts would escape appreciation. In other words, it 
comes to aim at the maximum of possible value which is 
in part determined by a complex standard and laws. The 
sesthetic is rooted in the popular concept. Its notion of 
red, for example, is at first that of a unique and pleasing 
qualitative experience. Red effects are correlated with 
other color effects and partially differentiated from them 
as warm or stimulating colors. The higher development 
of the sesthetic feeling for relation (including contrast, 
harmony, and discord) involves a keener discrimination of 
values and a more idealized feeling of the value of red. 
Red is no longer so isolated as an experience, but it is felt, 
imaged, or thought as belonging in certain typical con- 
nections and as not belonging in others. The experience 
is largely qualitative, and involves a sense of wholeness, 
red being one, though the chief, feature in this whole. 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 195 

This notion is still further specified through the supple- 
ment first of quantitative ideas of how the effect is physi- 
cally obtainable (compare the later stage of the popular 
concept), and then of aesthetic laws both broader and 
more precise which reveal the grounds of the effect on the 
one hand and the criteria of value on the other. 

The notion of red has been instanced because in its 
different degrees of completeness it may have chiefly 
practical, artistic, aesthetic, or theoretic functions. It is 
easy to substitute a musical example, but this need not 
be here worked out save for the higher aesthetic concept. 
The trained musician will have such a complex, relational 
concept of the leading note, for instance. Though this 
be sensed or imaged, it is felt in its proper relations. 
It is no mere synthesis either of apprehension or of per- 
ception, to adopt Lotze's distinctions.^ That is, it is not 
merely lumped together with other tonal values in one 
vague consciousness, nor is its place in the movement 
or series one of mere succession; its relations are not 
exhausted in the before-and-after relation. Rather are 
its relations appreciated as based on certain grounds 
(the structure of the scale, the laws of melody and har- 
mony, etc.), whether these be thought abstractly or not. 
Therefore the tone is felt as leading tone ; as such predi- 
cate it gains a definite import in the form, and the hearer 
has discovered a partial rationale of the effect. Such an 
attempt in musical experience to grasp the effectiveness, 
to trace it to its cause, and so to control its realization, 
though still retaining imagery and feeling, exhibits its 
similarity to scientific conception, and indeed depends 
indirectly upon that for its success. 

For though the popular, scientific, and higher aesthetic 
concepts are distinguishable, they are bound together in ^ 

1 Cf. Logic, English translation, vol. i, p. 38. 



196 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the total musical experience of the race. Esthetic con- 
cepts often do not rise above common-sense methods, 
only (as in music) they have regard to appreciation rather 
than to conduct or phenomena in the every-day world, and 
thus they idealize their material, making out of it a 
unique self -articulated tone world. The concepts of the 
performing artist would exhibit further similarities to the 
concepts that function in ordinary practice on account of 
their common relation to doing. Further, the most tech- 
nical and scientific concepts ultimately react into appreci- 
ation for its advancement, though not necessarily in the 
individual life. For musical aesthetics is distinct from 
mathematical physics, though the latter may supplement 
the former. So far as the exact ratios of rhythmic mea- 
sures, sound vibrations, overtones, etc., do not enter into 
the musical consciousness, they are not directly concepts 
of musical aesthetics. But even such technical mathe- 
matical concepts may conceivably have a value in training 
one to a more discriminating appreciation and perform- 
ance. For if mathematics, physics, and physiology have 
any power to modify or supplement psychological law 
and thus musical aesthetics, then through this intermedia- 
tion they may and ought to affect one's attitude to music. 
It may be that only by an appeal to mathematics can 
a clear and adequate insight into musical structure be 
gained, and yield laws that shall exhibit the significance 
of our actual musical experience. If that be the case, 
then mathematics is a means of gaining musical control. 
But neither composer, performer, nor hearer will have in 
mind such mathematical determinations; these are re- 
translated into relations of quality or psychological quan- 
tity (such as measurable distance in the scale), for in 
music itself one is never directly concerned with physical 
quantity (such as vibration rates). 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 197 

Thus in most of the directly aesthetic and artistic activ- 
ity and even in much musical practice, the requisite is 
emotional thought, vital interest, imaginative sympathy, 
soul ; therefore the more popular and aesthetic concepts. 
But there is a sphere of activity for the more quantitative 
and scientific mode of conception also in the system- 
atic study of musicians, in the development of musical 
tradition and systems, and in the invention and perfection 
of instruments and technique. Nor can it be doubted that 
all this reacts ultimately and with power into the inner 
musical life of man. 

5. A distinction should be made between thinking 
in music and thinking about music, but this will require 
little elaboration after the foregoing paragraphs. Uni- 
versal meanings characterize each type of thought. In the 
former these meanings are embodied in auditory, kinses- 
thetic, and other sensations or imagery having direct 
material value in the musical experience ; in the latter 
they are suggested by verbal, numerical, or other symbolic 
terms, — symbols which have no such direct value, but 
are external to the actual musical activity. Thus the 
former thought mode is largely concrete and is strictly 
a part of the aesthetic process, while the latter is more 
abstract and intellectual in its nature. But though their 
distinction is readily formulated in theory, in practice a 
sharp line cannot always be drawn between them. Thus, 
in different degrees, any one of the symbols 2-3, tonic- 
dominant, C-G, and their staff representation, may, as a 
mode of thought, shade over into or be fused with the 
feeling of actual relationship between two tonal impres- 
sions or images. 

Recurring to the feeling of tendency explained in (2) 
above, it is not essential to the constitution or function- 
ing of thought in music that this feeling be defined as 



198 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

regards either its direction (e. g. accelerando, up in pitch, 
away from discord) or its limits (in image or idea). Such 
definition may be a phase of thought i7i music, or again 
it may belong wholly to the sphere of thought about 
music. The structure of the former may consist mainly 
in the peculiar quality of the strain sensations and the feel- 
ing of check to or satisfaction of the tendency : these may 
be sufficient to define respectively the tendency and its 
limit. In thus far the thought appears fundamentally 
qualitative in its nature. Such thought is present in the 
actual sensuous embodiment of these feelings as one per- 
forms or listens. 

6. The question about the immediate or mediate nature 
of musical thought may well be presented by consider- 
ing Gurney's views on musical form and our appreciation 
of it, with special reference to the distinction between 
briefer and longer musical movements.^ His ideas are 
in substance as follows : The real beauty of music is 
embodied in the shorter unit of movement, such as a 
melodic phrase. This, the essence of music, is appreciated 
by a separate musical faculty, which is out of all relation 
to the intellect. The various relations (such as likeness, 
difference, contrast, balance) between phrases viay be 
cognized intellectually ; but the phrases, which are unique 
and individual, are of most importance musically. Plan 
or conscious design can be attributed only to the more 
comprehensive unities. The individual part fulfills no plan 
and is inspired by no end. The formal connection be- 
tween phrases may be more or less cogent and organic, 
it may involve rational principles ; therefore the corre- 
sponding subjective attitude may involve the exercise of 
thought. But the beauty of the single phrase is wholly 
individual and inexplicable, and is apprehended by the 

^ Power of Sound, pp. 190-206 et passim. 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 199 

unaided intuition. The listener's mental process is here 
that of immediate apprehension, while there it includes 
reflective or mediate thought. 

But because the essence of beauty is revealed through 
the former, it appears that intellectual processes, whether 
of analysis or synthesis, have no aesthetic validity. If the 
interconnections between phrases or the more inclusive 
forms have any effectiveness or worth in themselves and 
so contribute at all to the sum total of beauty (for from 
this standpoint there is in an extended piece only an 
aggregation of successively appearing beauties and not a 
complex beauty of the whole), such value resides wholly 
in their immediate, individual aspect ; it is merely given 
to this mystical musical faculty and in no wise determined 
by thought, which is concerned with universals and works 
under the guidance of rational principles. In no case 
does appreciation employ non-musical categories. Regu- 
larity of tempo and rhythm, fixity of pitch, and other fac- 
tors of musical form have an immediate instinctive value 
rather than a reflective one. Musical synthesis does not 
involve intellect or culture : " And so far, in these all- 
essential and characteristic forms, the general intellectual 
faculties, whether imaginative or logical, seem to have no 
place at all : the unique faculty of coordinating the notes 
and perceiving the group as a whole may be possessed by 
the most dunderheaded boor." 

These views certainly involve a partial truth, but this is 
present only by implication and is either neglected or 
rejected by Gurney in the main. Yet the pressure of its 
demands is such as to force him, in the further descrip- 
tion of his position, to statements really incompatible with 
the dualistic theory of thought and intuition just outlined. 
For first, as to the subjective side, it appears that the 
musical unit cannot be merely given. In proportion as 



I 

200 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

he really appreciates, the listener is mentally active rather 
than overpowered by his object. His attitude can hardly 
be called one of sim2:)le apprehension, for his mental con- 
tent is a complex unity. Though hioion relations have 
no place in his sense of beauty, the importance is admitted 
of felt relations based on associations due to past experi- 
ence. Evidently if the development of musical intuition 
depends on experience, the utility of the experience will 
depend to some extent on the part played in it by cogni- 
tive aspects. The intuition is an act of synthesis, a group- 
mg, cobrdmatuig, phrasing ; and as its content includes 
distinguished terms and felt relations, this implies an act 
of analysis. As regards the objective side, it is maintained 
that musical form is organic and involves strict interde- 
pendence of parts, that form is present in proportion as 
the sequence and mode of connection is cogent, and that 
therefore the notion of form is more applicable to the 
smaller than to the larger unities. However individual 
and transcendent of entire comprehension or explanation 
a form may be, then, it cannot be regarded as merely 
particular, as exclusive of all universal characteristics. As 
individual form, it is the unity of particular and universal. 
The inference from such views on musical form, re- 
garded either as the subjective attitude or as the object, is 
that form is not a simple datum, for that would be the 
mere material of appreciation, but a complex process. 
Apprehension is complex, even in its structure, and pa- 
tently so in its function and meaning. It has its immedi- 
ate and mediate aspects which are never entirely divorced. 
If the unity, meaning, and beauty of a phrase be sum- 
marized in a thrill of feeling and heightened pleasure, 
this is not mere pleasure nor mere immediate feeling, 
nor is it the whole of appreciation. Were that the case, 
all musical values would be alike to one, or rather the 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MUSIC 201 

very possibility of their comparison and adjustment to a 
standard would be impossible. This feeling is an abstrac- 
tion as compared with the real process of appreciating, 
and it is but a sign or a portion of the value that has 
been worked out in part by the intellect. The feeling as 
immediate is rooted in and organically continuous with 
mediating processes preceding it, and its meaning should 
not be sacrificed to its bare content. To divorce them is 
not only to be untrue to the essential nature of the pro- 
cess, but to plunge one into insuperable theoretical diffi- 
culties. The two sorts of musical unity, that within the 
phrase and that between phrases, are not different in 
kind, therefore, but only in degree ; just as apprehension 
and reflection are not distinct faculties or modes of men- 
tal activity, but both involve, though in different degrees, 
the two factors of mediation and immediate feeling. 



VII 
PRAGMATISM AND KANTIANISM 

William Longstketh Raub 

The doctrines grouped under the name of pragmatism 
are among the most important now under discussion in 
philosophy. Although differing in details, as expressed 
in the radical empiricism of Professor James, the imme- 
diate empiricism of Professor Dewey, and the humanism 
of Mr. Schiller, its exponents agree in proposing a practi- 
cal criterion of truth, as that which works, which satisfies 
our needs. They consider reality as something given in 
experience rather than existing outside of it, and truth as 
expressing a relation between different parts of experience 
rather than a relation between our ideas and a hypotheti- 
cal extra-experiential reality. 

The current discussions of the position are directed 
almost entirely to the question of its validity, either as a 
logical or as a psychological theory. This question, how- 
ever, cannot be satisfactorily answered until the position 
has been more definitely formulated, as some of the prag- 
matists themselves acknowledge that they are not yet clear 
as to its meaning. 

But the question of the truth of pragmatism is not the 
only aspect of the doctrine that is of interest to the phi- 
losopher. The discussion of its place in the history of 
philosophy has more than a merely historical value. Much 
of the vagueness and misunderstanding of the current dis- 
cussions might be avoided if it were more clearly under- 



204 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

stood that the main features of pragmatism are not new 
and that its more important doctrines have already been 
thoroughly discussed. Its principal defenders treat it as 
an essentially new position, and seem to consider that its 
appearance is to mark the beginning of a new era in phi- 
losophic thought. They acknowledge that suggestions of 
its main features may be found in the writings of earlier 
philosophers, but seem to regard these as simply uncon- 
scious anticipations of the truth. But among those of its 
critics who grant it any validity this claim for its novelty 
has not been favorably received. Various writers have 
shown that the main problem of pragmatism is common 
property in philosophy, and that the different features of 
the solution which the pragmatists offer to this problem 
have been consciously advanced by various philosophers 
from Plato to Wundt. There would seem, however, to be 
a need at the present time of insisting more emphatically 
upon the similarity between pragmatism and the Kantian 
doctrines of experience and knowledge, a similarity that 
will probably be better recognized as a more thorough 
criticism forces the pragmatists to formulate their doc- 
trine more definitely. That the more important features 
of pragmatism, in so far as it is a valid theory, are com- 
pletely expressed in the Kantian philosophy, is the thesis 
which this paper undertakes to defend. 



Professor James, Professor Dewey, and Mr. Schiller are 
recognized as the leaders of the pragmatist movement. 
Each has given to his own theory a particular name, but 
each acknowledges himself a pragmatist and gives his 
allegiance to the main doctrines of the others. Professor 
James in his radical empiricism emphasizes the pluralistic 



PKAGMATISM AND KANTIANISM 205 

aspect of experience/ Professor Dewey in his immediate 
empiricism its realistic aspect;^ and Mr. Schiller in his 
humanism the purposive character of knowledge.^ 

Pragmatism is considered to owe its origin to the break- 
down of the representational view of knowledge, the be- 
lief that science expresses truths that are exact copies of 
non-human or trans-empirical realities.'* The new meaning 
of truth, which it would substitute for the old, can be 
understood only in the light of the pragmatist theory of 
experience. For Professor James, " Experience is a pro- 
cess that continually gives us new material to digest. We 
handle this intellectually by the apperceiving mass of 
beliefs of which we find ourselves already possessed, as- 
similating, rejecting, or rearranging in different degrees."^ 
The general theories of experience held by Professor 
Dewey and Mr. Schiller agree substantially with this.^ 
The views of the three writers regarding the details of 
the steps in this process are expressed in a somewhat frag- 
mentary form in recent discussions. 

Pure experience is, according to Professor James, the 
stuff of which everything is composed,^ the stuff that is 
furnished to us in the instant field of the present,^ and 

1 The Will to Believe, pp. vii. £f. ; "A World of Pure Experience," Journal 
of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, i, p. 534. 

2 " The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism," ibid, ii, pp. 393 ff. 
^ Humanism, Philosophical Essays. 

* James, " Humanism and Truth," Mind, N. S. xiii. No. 52, p. 459; " The 
Essence of Humanism," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific 
Methods, ii, p. 115; Dewey, Studies in Logical Theory; Schiller, Humanism, 
pp. 44 ff. 

5 "Humanism and Truth," Mind, N. s. 52, p. 460. 

^ Dewey, " The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism," Journal of Phi- 
losophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, ii, pp. 393 ff. ; " The Knowledge 
Experience Again," ihid. p. 710 ; Studies in Logical Theory, ch. i-iv; Schiller, 
Humanism, ch. xi. 

' " Does ' Consciousness ' Exist ? " Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and 
Scientific Methods, i, p. 478. 

8 Ibid. p. 485. 



20C STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

that comprises not only our percepts but also the relations 
that connect our percepts/ This immediate experience is 
not to be considered as representational, phenomenal, or 
in any sense unreal. "Immediate empiricism/' says Pro- 
fessor Dewey, "postulates that things — anything, every- 
thing, in the ordinary or non-technical use of the term 
^ thing ' — are what they are experienced as." ^ The Zoll- 
ner's lines are experienced by us as divergent ; that is, 
" the lines of that experience are divergent : not merely 
seem so." ^ " The only reality we can start with," says 
Mr. Schiller, " is our own personal, immediate experience. 
We may lay it down, therefore, that all immediate 
experience is as such real'' "^ 

But in the fluency of this immediate experience there 
are disappointments and uncertainties, and the reflective 
intellect discovers in it incomprehensibilities.^ This unsat- 
isfactoriness of the perceptual experience leads us to the 
creation of a second form, the conceptual experience, in 
which we think of things as existing in an objective order, 
different from our perception of them.*^ The clearest state- 
ment in the pragmatist literature of the motive and impli- 
cations of this transition from perceptual to conceptual 
experience is given by Mr. Schiller. " We start, indubita- 
bly, with an immediate experience of some sort. But we 
do not rest therein. If we could, there would be no fur- 
ther question. Our immediate experience would suffice; 

^ " A World of Pure Experience," ibid, i, p. 534. 

^ " The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism," iUd. ii, p. 393. 

8 Ibid. p. 397. 

* Schiller, Humanism, p. 192. 

* James, " A World of Pure Experience," Journal of Philosophy, Psy- 
chology, and Scientijic Methods, i, p. 662 ; " The Thing and its Relations," 
ibid, ii, p. 29. 

* James, " Does Consciousness Exist ? " ibid, i, p. 481 ; " How Two 
Minds can know One Thing," ibid, ii, p. 177; Dewey, Sludies in Logical 
Theory, eh. ii. 



PRAGMATISM AND KANTIANISM 207 

it would be the sole and complete reality. . . . But our 
experience is woefully discordant and inadequate. In 
other wordsj our experience is not that of a perfect world. 
We are neither disposed, therefore, nor able, to accept it 
as it appears to he. Its surface value will not enable us 
to meet our obligations : we are compelled, therefore, to 
discount our immediate experience, to treat it as an ap- 
pearance of something ulterior which will supplement its 
deficiency. We move on, therefore, from our starting- 
point, taking our immediate experience as the symbol 
which transmits to us the glad tidings of a higher reality, 
whereof it partly manifests the nature. The ' realities ' of 
ordinary life and science are all of this secondary order : 
they rest upon inferences from our immediate experience 
which have been found to work. And the process of 
reaching them is everywhere the same : we experiment 
with notions which are suggested to our intelligence by 
our immediate experience, until we hit upon one which 
seems to be serviceable for some purpose which engrosses 
us. And then we declare real the conception which 
serves our purpose, nay more real, because more potent, 
than the immediate experience for the satisfaction of our 
desire." ^ " It must never be forgotten that the immedi- 
ate experience is after all in a way rtiore real^ i. e. more 
directly real, than the ' higher realities ' which are said to 
^ explain ' it. For the latter are inferred and postulated 
simply and solely for the purpose of ' explaining ' the 
former, and their reality consequently rests for us upon 
that of the former.'' ^ 

This purpose or need which engrosses us and for which 

* Humanism, p. 193. Cf. Dewey, Studies in Logical Theory, ch. iii. 

^ Humanism, p. 195. Cf. James, " A World of Pure Experience," Jour- 
nal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods^ i, pp. 641 ff. ; Dewey, 
Studies in Logical Theory, ch. iv. 



208 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the conceptual reality seeems to be serviceable is not 
simply that arising from the demand for an ^'explana- 
tion." Professor Dewey considers the test of thought to 
be the harmony or unity of experience actually effected,-^ 
while according to Professor James the reconstruction 
of experience is to the effect " that we may the better 
foresee the course of our experiences, communicate with 
one another, and steer our lives by rule. Also that we 
may have a cleaner, clearer, more inclusive mental view." ^ 
Mr. Schiller considers the purpose as still more inclu- 
sive, i. e. "to construct out of the material we start with 
a harmonious cosmos which will satisfy all our desires 
(that for knowledge included)."^ "We conceive the 
axioms as arising out of man's needs as an agent, as 
prompted by his desires, as affirmed by his will, in a 
word as nourished and sustained by his emotional and 
volitional nature." * 

This "objective reference" or reorganizing of experience 
is brought about by the application to perceptual reality 
of certain principles. "The world is experience plus con- 
necting principles."^ These "notions," " apperceiving 
ideas," " connecting principles," or axioms are postulates 
which we have made in response to our needs and desires. 
They are " necessary " only in the sense that we need 
them as means to our end.^ Most of them, such as those 
of one time and one space as single continuous receptacles, 
of causality and of the permanence of matter, have served 
their purpose for so long a time that they may now 
be considered common-sense traditions of the race. But 
though they are only postulates, their use by us is not a 
matter of our caprice. " They proved of such sovereign 

1 Studies in Logical Theory, p. 85. 

2 " Humanism and Truth," Mind, N. s. 52, p. 461. 

^ " Axioms as Postulates," Personal Idealism, p. 55. Cf. p. 57. 
4 Ibid. p. 86. ^ Ibid, ch. i. ^ jf^i^, ch. iii. 



PRAGMATISM AND KANTIANISM 209 

use as Denkmittel that they are now a part of the very 
structure of our mind. We cannot play fast and loose 
with them. No experience can upset them. On the con- 
trary they apperceive every experience and assign it to 
its place. "^ "The great axioms or postulates have be- 
come so ingrained in all our habits of thought, that we 
may practically rely on them to stand fast so long as 
human thought endures." ^ And Professor James con- 
siders that they may become so thoroughly " a part of 
the very structure of our mind " that we may have more 
confidence in them than in experience itself. " If a novel 
experience, conceptual or perceptual, contradict too em- 
phatically our preexistent system of beliefs, in ninety- 
nine cases out of a hundred it is treated as false." ^ 

Reality is then for us something existing within expe- 
rience, though not necessarily entirely within perceptual 
experience. As immediate realities " things are what they 
are experienced to be."* As mediate realities they are 
what we construct. " For us reality is an accumulation 
of our own intellectual inventions."^ It means 'Hhe 
other conceptual or perceptual experiences with which a 
given present experience may find itself in point of fact 
mixed up." ^ The reality of things means that " we submit 
to them, take account of them, whether we hke to or 
not." It is independent in that " there is something in 
every experience that escapes our arbitrary control." 
Whether experience itself is due to something independ- 
ent of all possible experience is a question that prag- 

1 James, " Humanism and Truth," Mind, N. s. 52, p, 561. 

2 Schiller, " Axioms as Postulates," Personal Idealism, p. 93. 

^ " The Essence of Humanism, " Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and 
Scientific Methods, ii, p. 118. 

* Dewey, " The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism," ihid. ii, p. 394. 
^ James, " Humanism and Truth," Mind, N. s. 52, p. 462. 
6 Ihid. p. 474. 



210 STUDIES m PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

matism declines to answer.^ Even were there such an 
independent reahty, we could know nothing about it.^ 
On this basis the pragmatist meaning of truth appears as 
" the relation of less fixed parts of experience (predicates) 
to other relatively more fixed parts (subjects) ; and we are 
not required to seek in it a relation of experience as such 
to anything beyond itself." ^ 

The pragmatist criterion of truth is usefulness or sat- 
isfaction. That is true which works^ which satisfies our 
needs. Professor James defines the true as that which 
gives the maximal combination of satisfactions.* For Mr. 
Schiller it is the useful, efficient, workable.^ " The true 
is useful and the useless is untrue." ^ But the nature of 
this satisfaction the pragmatists do not clearly define. 
Professor Dewey indicates that it is an intellectual satis- 
faction in the harmony or unity of experience/ but Mr. 
Schiller and Professor James do not thus limit it. For the 
former, " As regards the objects valued as ' true/ truth 
is that manipulation of them which turns out upon trial 
to be useful, primarily for any human end, but ultimately 
for that perfect harmony of our whole life which forms 
our final aspiration ; " ^ while the latter considers satis- 
faction a many-dimensional term that can be realized in 
various ways,^ and the term " to be satisfactory " one that 
admits of no definition, so many are the ways in which 
this requirement can be worked out.^^ " Satisfactoriness 

- James, "Humanism and Truth," Mind, N. s. 52, p. 463. 

2 Schiller, Humanism, pp. 9 ff . 

3 James, " Humanism and Truth," Mind, N. s. 52, p. 464. 

* "Humanism and Truth Once More," Mind, N. s. xiv, No. 54, p. 196. 

fi Humanism., p. 59. 

« Ibid. p. 38. ' ' 

^ Studies in Logical Theory, ch. iv. 

8 Humanism, p. 61. 

9 " Humanism and Truth Once More," Mind, N. s. 54, p. 196. 
10 "Humanism and Truth," ibid. 52, p. 474. 



PRAGMATISM AND KANTIANISM 211 

has to be measured by a multitude of standards, of which 
some, for aught we know, may fail in any given case." ^ 

The important features of the pragmatist position are 
thus, — 

A chaotic given experience which sets us questions ; 

An orderly constructed experience which we substitute 
in thought for the immediate experience ; 

Fundamental principles or categories, " long ago wrought 
into the structure of our consciousness," ^ and in accord- 
ance with which the construction is made ; 

The necessary corollary that reality is plastic and, 
except as given in immediate experience, of our own 
creation ; 

The purposiveness of human thought, expressed in the 
" practical " criterion of truth. 

II 

The Kantian theory of experience is expressed in the 
doctrines that we have two forms of experience, the first 
the chaotic crude material of the senses, the second the 
scientific experience that conforms to law ; that the first 
is given by the sensibility, the second thought by the 
understanding ; that this transition from given to con- 
structed experience is possible only by the use of the cate- 
gories, which are thus the a priori conditions of possible 
(orderly) experience ; that the categories apply only to 
objects of possible experience, and that consequently we 
can know nothing about realities existing outside of ex- 
perience ; and that we use the categories in response to 
the highest intellectual need of our nature, the demand 
for sanity. These are the doctrines of Kant which ex- 
press the main features of pragmatism. Behind the dif- 

1 "Humanism and Truth Once More," Mind, N. s. 54, p. 191. 

2 James, "Humanism and Truth," ibid. 52, p. 461. 



212 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

ferences of phraseology there is an essential identity of 
thought, an identity which a comparison of the details 
of the two doctrines makes apparent. 

To the chaotic pure experience of the pragmatist 
Kant's material of perception [das Mannigfaltige der 
Erscheinimg) corresponds. This is the irreducible given 
element of all experience. In so far as the pragmatist's 
immediate experience "of things as they are" includes 
their temporal and spatial relations, it is the perception 
[Erscheimmg) of the Kantian doctrine, the undetermined 
object, in which the material is arranged in the a jmori 
forms of time and space, but to which the categories of 
the understanding have not yet been applied. 

In the "demand for an explanation" is the first motive 
for constructing an experience to take the place of the 
immediate experience. But this demand has its source in 
us, rather than in the immediate experience. We set the 
questions. The "inadequateness" of immediate experi- 
ence appears only as we make demands upon it. The. 
so-called "contradictions in sense testimony" are really 
contradictions between the testimony of the senses and 
what we believe they ought to testify to. 

In the "Transcendental Analytic" and the "Prolego- 
mena" Kant establishes the doctrine of a constructed ex- 
perience. Nature, as the existence of things so far as it is 
determined according to universal laws, is of our own cre- 
ation. The universal laws of nature are really the laws 
of thought, which we discover in experience only because 
we have constructed that experience in accordance with 
them. "The understanding creates its 'laws {a j^riori) 
not from nature, but prescribes them to it." ^ "That 
nature' must conform to our subjective apperception — 
nay, even that its order must depend on this relation 

^ Prolegomena, § 36. 



PRAGMATISM AND KANTIANISM 213 

— probably sounds very absurd and strange. But if we 
reflect that this nature is nothing in itself but the sum 
total of phenomena, consequently nothing jper se, but 
merely a number of mental representations, we need nT)t 
be surprised that we see it subject to the radical faculty of 
all our knowledge,^^^ In the "Prolegomena" Kant distin- 
guishes between judgments of perception, which are only 
subjectively valid, and judgments of experience, which 
have objective validity. It is of the latter class that sci- 
ence is composed. All our judgments are at first merely 
perceptive judgments. It is only through the action of 
the understanding in the application of the categories 
that a judgment of perception can become a judgment of 
experience; i. e. a judgment concerning a reality in ob- 
jective temporal, spatial, and causal relations. 

Kant's discussion of the categories is rightly consid- 
ered inadequate, but it includes those regarded by the 
pragmatists as serving in the reorganization of experi- 
ence. Of greatest importance in the Kantian list are 
those of relation, — substance, causality, and reciprocity; 
and of these the category of causality is of prime impor- 
tance in constructing a reality that will "explain" our 
immediate experience. 

One of the greatest apparent differences between prag- 
matism and the theory of Kant is that in the latter the 
categories are considered a j^riori notions of the under- 
standing, while for the pragmatists they are derived from 
experience. While many of the pragmatists' statements 
are open to the interpretation that the categories have 
been derived from the experience of the individual, where 
they have spoken most clearly in regard to them they 
leave no doubt that they consider them a posteriori for 

1 Kritik of the Pure Reasoriy " Deduction," sec. 2, par. 4. (trans, by Ma- 
haffy), p. 169. 



214 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the race, but a priori for the individual. To grant that 
"no experience can upset them" because "they are now 
a part of the very structure of our mind/' is equivalent 
to calling them a p)Tiori in the Kantian sense. Kant's 
criteria of apriority are necessity and universahty, but 
universality is derived from necessity, and no more posi- 
tive test of necessity is given by Kant than this to which 
the categories of pragmatism respond. The pragmatist 
does not claim that they are derived from his individual 
experience, and he grants that for him they carry with 
them necessity. As to their derivation in the experience 
of the race, this is a theory advanced by the pragmatist, 
but not established, while for Kant it is a question that 
lies outside of his philosophy. He is concerned not with 
the psychological problem of the process by which the 
categories have come into consciousness, but with the 
philosophical problem of their value to us in construct- 
ing an objective experience. The determination of this 
value demands the investigation of the mental processes 
involved in their use, but this is a problem of the psy- 
chology of the individual in the present, not of the psy- 
chology of the race in the past. 

Although the categories in Kant's theory are not de- 
rived from experience, they apply only to objects of 
possible experience. They cannot give us knowledge of 
things j9er se existing outside of experience. That Binge 
an sich exist as the cause of our sensations, is granted 
by Kant; he denies that through purely intellectual ac- 
tivity we can know anything — unless negatively — as to 
their character. Pragmatism does not deny their exist- 
ence, but it does not discuss the question. Whether the 
attitude of Kant toward Dinge an sich is due to his 
uncritical retention of certain metaphysical assumptions, 
or to the application of the category o£ causality beyond 



PRAGMATISM AND KANTIANISM 215 

the limits which he established for it, is not material. 
The legitimate consequence of his position would bar him 
from any assertions, positive or negative, as to assumed 
entities not experienced. The distinction between pheno- 
mena and noumena is not logically an essential feature 
of the Kantian philosophy. Pragmatism and Kantian- 
ism, however, agree that the only reality that we can 
definitely know is a reality either given in or constructed 
in experience. In the final analysis the phenomena are 
really noumena. Truth, therefore, is necessarily a rela- 
tion between different parts of experience. This conclu- 
sion is not merely implied in Kant's general discussion, 
it is directly involved in his negative condition of truth 
as the agreement of a cognition with the universal and 
formal laws of the understanding and reason.^ 

The pragmatist's practical criterion of truth seems at 
first sight to involve only the element of passing needs. 
Mr. Schiller's test of truth as that " which turns out upon 
trial to be useful, primarily for any human end," cer- 
tainly suggests the satisfaction of present transitory de- 
sires, as does also Professor James's "maximal combina- 
tion of satisfactions." But together with those statements 
of pragmatism which are susceptible of this interpreta- 
tion, there are many which indicate that in some cases 
at least the satisfaction sought is that of the deeper, per- 
manent demands of our nature. The recognition that one 
of these permanent demands is for a harmonious orderly 
experience is closely related to the acknowledgment of 
the pragmatist that the categories are the principles 
in accordance with which this experience is constructed 
and that they are now beyond our arbitrary control. How 
both of these classes of needs, temporary and perma- 
nent, can be used indifferently in the utilitarian test 

1 Kritik of the Pure Reason^ Trans. Logic, Intr. iii. 



216 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

of truth is a problem that pragmatism has not answered. 
The tendency of the discussion is toward the position 
that it is only in the satisfaction of permanent needs 
that a criterion of truth can be found. Mr. Schiller's 
ideal of "a perfect harmony of our whole life which 
forms our final aspirations/' Professor James's demand 
for a ^^ cleaner, clearer, more inclusive mental view" and 
rules by which he may steer his life, and Professor Dewey's 
test of thought as the " harmony or unity of experience 
actually effected," indicate a more or less clear recognition 
on the part of the pragma tists that whatever be the 
source of our deeper, permanent desires, whether they 
arise in our intellectual, emotional, or volitional nature, 
they find their complete satisfaction only in a rational 
universe. But this does not make the test of truth any 
less practical or less dependent upon the permanent needs 
of our nature. The most important feature of the Kan- 
tian epistemology is the deduction of the categories, in 
which Kant establishes the fact that we construct our 
orderly experience in response to the demands of our 
own nature. As the categories are the a j^riori condi- 
tions of possible experience, their use is justified only as 
we can justify the demands for a uniform experience. 
Kant's analysis of the process of construction reveals the 
important part played in it by the function of synthesis, 
in producing unity in the multiplicity of immediate ex- 
perience. The highest synthesis in the construction of 
experience is that which produces unity of consciousness, 
or consciousness of the identity of self. This " transcen- 
dental unity of apperception " is sanity,^ and is attained 
and maintained only in and through a uniform expe- 
rience. The ultimate motive, therefore, for the use of 
the categories is the instinctive demand for sanity. We 

' Cf. Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy, pp. 128 ff. 



PRAGMATISM AND KANTIANISM 217 

have no guarantee, however, that this demand will be 
satisfied, and the fact of insanity is the sufficient evi- 
dence that in many cases it is not satisfied. A rational 
universe is thus in the truest sense a practical postulate, 
and for the Kantian philosophy the ultimate test of truth 
is utilitarian. 

The constructed, orderly experience is my universe, con- 
structed hy me in accordance with my laws of thought. 
I believe that intelligent fellow-beings exist, whose expe- 
riences are a part of my universe and with whom I com- 
municate. But on the basis of either pragmatism or 
Kantianism this can be taken to mean only that each 
intelligent fellow-being constructs his own universe, and 
that these numerically different constructions correspond. 
Neither position makes possible the action of different 
individuals on each other. The problems involved in this 
and in the assumption that the categories are the same 
for all intelligent fellow-beings are not solved by Kant, 
but are passed on to the post-Kantian discussions. For 
the pragmatist they are crucial questions, of which he has 
not yet offered an adequate solution. Until he does offer 
such a solution pragmatism cannot be accepted as a satis- 
factory theory of experience. 



vm 

THE INFLUENCE OF PRAGMATISM UPON 
THE STATUS OF THEOLOGY 

Eugene William Lyman 

It has come to be a well-nigh universally accepted notion 
that theology must occupy an isolated position among the 
sciences. Various philosophical systems have endeavored 
in times past to furnish theology with a foundation, and 
such a service is still sought by theology in many quarters. 
But even where this is the case, the relationship is not 
reciprocal ; theology is not admitted to a share in the 
work of forming a Weltanschauung , It is true that many 
a philosophy draws material from religion, but it is reli- 
gion worked into scientific form by some non-theological 
method. Theology itself is not expected, like the other 
sciences, to produce results which philosophy can neglect 
only at its peril. Formerly the queen of the sciences and 
now, whether by the revolt of its former subjects or by 
its own choice, alienated from their commonwealth, it has 
at no time occupied the position of their simple peer. 

The direct cause of the situation has been that the- 
ology has been too radically unlike the other sciences in 
the critical point, that of method. While science as a 
whole, excepting only the purely formal disciphnes like 
mathematics and logic, has been becoming more and more 
empirical, theology has remained frankly dogmatic. This 
has made possible its alliance with dogmatic types of 
philosophy, but has excluded it from the fellowship of 
science in general, a circumstance that has really hindered 



220 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

it in furthering the practical mission of the church to 
the culture of our time. The dogmatic and the empirical 
methods are so fundamentally different that they render 
the disciplines employing them different in kind. When 
such a difference prevails between theology and the other 
sciences, the most that can be done toward establishing 
a modus mvendi is to show that there is " no conflict " be- 
tween science and religion ; for so long as the scientific 
treatment of religion goes on by a method entirely differ- 
ent from that employed by science in general, there can 
be no real correlation of religion and science. 

The question whether there is a remedy for the iso- 
lation of theology and for the consequent tendency to 
schism in our higher life is therefore a question of whether 
this radical difference of method can be done away with. 
Is the dogmatic method necessary to theology? Could 
the empirical method be employed in its place ? 

The dogmatic method starts with the assumption of a 
certain infallible canon of truth. By the means of this 
canon our conceptions of truth in the realm to which it 
applies are to be investigated, corrected, and systematized, 
or our concrete experience is to be interpreted and com- 
pleted, or rectified. All of our conceptions and experiences 
may be subject to scrutiny and criticism except the canon 
itself. That cannot be criticised. The canon may be a 
book, a creed, or some other form of tradition, an eccle- 
siastical fiat, or a set of intuitions : whatever it be, it is 
inviolable ; it is the measure of all things, at least within 
a certain field, and therefore cannot itself be measured. 
The more extensive the canon the more dogmatic the sci- 
ence in which it is employed, for if the canon have a large 
content, the major truths of the science can be secured 
deductively from it. But if any portion of the truth 
promulgated by a science is shut up from investigation 



PRAGMATISM AND THEOLOGY 221 

because canonical, then that science is so far forth dog- 
matic. 

What in the nature of theology has led to the universal 
adoption of the dogmatic method ? Two reasons lie close 
at hand. The immediate practical interests of theology 
require it to have definite canons or norms. A science 
that is to serve life in its e very-day and fundamental 
functions cannot be constantly going back to the begin- 
ning and scrutinizing its standards. It is, for instance, 
very difficult practically to change from the conventional- 
ized natural systems of measurement to the thoroughly 
artificial metric system. Arithmetic must subordinate the 
consideration of whether a system of notation on the scale 
of eight or twelve would be better than one on the scale of 
ten, and must concern itself chiefly with the study of prob- 
lems and methods on our present basis. The very inspi- 
ration to theology is the consciousness of possessing a 
sure body of truth, which it is desirable to hold in a sci- 
entific form because that form renders the truth more 
usable. When therefore an effective canon has been dis- 
covered, it is of the highest moment that it should be 
employed, not forever skeptically scrutinized. This being 
the natural status of theology, it has been psychologically 
easy to pass to the limit and pronounce the canon inscrut- 
able; whereupon the whole body of teaching in any sys- 
tem of theology is transformed from normal or evaluated 
truth into dogma. This procedure has always charac- 
terized theology ; even speculative theology has been no 
exception to the rule, for it has merely substituted one 
or more philosophemes for a more external or empirical 
standard. 

But the full explanation of the domination of the- 
ology by the dogmatic method is not furnished by its im- 
portant practical interests. Ethics has a similar practical 



222 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

function, and yet it is showing itself far more amenable 
to the spirit of empiricism, — the attitude of mind which 
seems most favorable for the correlation of the sciences. 

The second reason for the dogmatism of theology is 
that it steadily claims to deal with the realm of the super- 
natural; and while much in this realm has been conceived 
on the basis of human experience, its supernaturalness 
has been supposed to consist in just the respects in which 
it has been believed to be trans-experiential. The agnos- 
ticism that such a view suo^o^ests to the scientific mind 
has never occurred to theology, the traditional form of 
which has employed the conception of revelation to medi- 
ate to it the supernatural or trans-experiential. Here is 
where the dogmatic method has been absolutely indispen- 
sable. Since the supernatural is trans-experiential, it can 
only be known by means of some canon. This canon can- 
not be tested in turn by experience, because that would 
degrade the supernatural; it cannot be tested by the 
content of the revelation, because that is known to be 
supernatural by means of the canon ; it must therefore 
be a dogmatically valid canon, inscrutable in its nature. 
This procedure of traditional theology has been abun- 
dantly criticised by the speculative form of theology, but 
quite inconsistently, for the latter has conceived the super- 
natural in the same way, and has only replaced a dogmat- 
ically canonized Revelation by a dogmatically canonized 
Reason. 

Evidently if theology maintains the foregoing concep- 
tion of its subject matter, it is irrevocably committed to 
the dogmatic method, and its present isolation among the 
sciences is irremediable. A change in the scientific status 
of theology is possible only on the basis of a different 
conception of the supernatural. Now if theology proper 
will turn to the historical branch of divinity, it will find 



PRAGMATISM AND THEOLOGY 223 

such a different conception already worked out upon his- 
torical principles. Historical theology's most important 
results may be summed up in the proposition that for 
the great personalities of the Hebrew religion, and for the 
founder of Christianity and his foremost interpreters, the 
supernatural is the ethical. Prophetic teaching, culminat- 
ing in the Jewish exile, centred in the faith that God's 
nature is righteous and his power supreme. Jesus, re- 
acting against contemporary legalism and particularism, 
teaches this faith of the prophets with new depth and 
universaHty. What is vastly more, he draws its practical 
consequences unhesitatingly, embodying them unswerv- 
ingly in both his inner and his outer life. Paul lifts the 
conception of the Spirit, under which he freely subsumes 
the realities of his Christian experience, out of the sea 
of physical mysticism into the ethical realm. The most 
comprehensive thoughts and the most dynafnic lives of 
Hebrew and Christian reHgion have this common signifi- 
cance, that they make for the ethicizing of the conception 
of the supernatural. 

The systematic branch of theology needs to do nothing 
so much as to appropriate unreservedly the view of the 
supernatural that historical theology has laid at its thresh- 
old. It has of course been impossible for it not to make 
much of this essential feature of Christianity, and yet it 
has never taken it in its radical meaning. Theology has, 
to be sure, conceived of the Christian life ethically, but it 
has always assumed that this life was preceded by a super- 
natural salvation, meaning thereby an event really non- 
ethical in character. Its conception of God, too, while 
including all moral qualities, has made the essentially de- 
ifying qualities to be of a trans-experiential order. But 
if the supernatural in the universe is the ethical, then its 
nature and activities can no longer be regarded as trans- 



224 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

experiential in just its most characteristic attributes. It 
belongs to the empirical order of being and therefore is 
not excluded by its very nature from being progressively 
apprehensible by empirical methods. 

But while, if theology should adopt a thoroughly ethi- 
cal conception of the supernatural, the dogmatic method 
would become unnecessary, the question remains whether 
the empirical method, as science has developed it, is ade- 
quate for dealing with religious experience. 

If the past attempts of empiricism to treat of religion 
be consulted, the insufficiency of its method becomes 
plain. Empiricism has never been able to deal with the 
problem of the truth of religion. Either it has recognized 
this fact, and so has sought to deal with religion histori- 
cally, on the supposition that it could do so without raising 
the question of truth, or it has concluded that no positive 
truth could be derived from religion. But these results 
must lead the religious man to view the application of the 
empirical method to his experience either with suspicion 
or with hostility, and consequently to take refuge in dog- 
matic theology. This failure of empiricism may be in part 
due to the fact that, misled by the, official interpretations 
of theology, it has not grasped the ethical character which, 
in the more developed forms of religion at least, has been 
intrinsic in religion ; but it is more largely to be attributed 
to the inadequacy of its method. 

In the empirical method ^ zest for analysis has been the 
ruling passion from which its notions of truth have been 
derived. The explanation of a thing, the truth about a 
thing, has for this method been found to consist in an 
enumeration of the component parts into which that thing 
could be resolved. So all-absorbing has been this passion 

^ Cf. Dewey's criticism of empiricism as applied to morality, Philosophical 
RevieWf vol. xi, No. 4. 



PRAGMATISM AND THEOLOGY 225 

for analysis, and so satisfying its results, for certain pur- 
poses of control or prediction, as to lead its devotees to 
regard these results as ultimates, — that is, to adopt them, 
not only as the final truth, but also as the real reality. It 
is true that a spirit of caution has frequently prevented 
such a point of view from being explicitly affirmed, but 
even then ultimate components have been the limiting 
conceptions from mere approximation to which a superior 
reality and truth could be claimed for any particular re- 
sults of the analytic process. Thus empiricism has unwit- 
tingly become infected with an absolutist spirit. It has 
become guilty of two of the errors of absolutism : first, 
the error of regarding truth as the function of a single 
psychic process, in this case a peculiarly restricted one, — 
that of intellectual analysis ; second, the error of assum- 
ing the identity of reality and truth, which, since empiri- 
cism may feel compelled to stop short of ultimate com- 
ponents, may take the form of regarding the truth of an 
idea as being measured by the degree of faithfulness with 
which it copies reality. 

Whatever might be said about a method of the fore- 
going character when applied to the objects of physical 
science, it is palpably unadapted to dealing with religion. 
Religion is an evolving thing ; its ideas and experiences 
do not exist in isolation but as parts of a process. More- 
over these ideas are not inert members or by-products of 
the process in which they occur, but they are rather its 
active constituents, reacting upon it and transforming it 
into something different from what it would have been 
had they not entered into it. The meaning of religious 
ideas and experiences, therefore, must depend upon their 
context ; they cannot be interpreted apart from what they 
do, and hence must be studied historically. But the em- 
pirical method, as science has developed it, is in spirit un- 



226 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

historical, in spite of the would-be historical investigation 
of religion which it has sometimes undertaken. Empiri- 
cism, as has just been pointed out, seeks for the compo- 
nent elements of a phenomenon in the faith that such ele- 
ments, if they can be found, are the ultimate reality. The 
phenomenon itself is first isolated and then its elements 
are sought as an interpretation of the phenomenon, which 
means that the elements, just as elements, taken in their 
isolation, are accorded final value. But such a procedure 
in effect denies the reality of any evolutionary process as 
such, and when applied to religious experience tends to 
paralyze rather than to sustain it. It separates religious 
states from all time reference, ignores their functional 
significance as a measure of truth, and estimates them 
solely by their relation to psychic elements. The conse- 
quence is that under the empiricist's touch, all objective 
value vanishes from religious experience. The ultimate 
psychic elements being for the empiricist as a matter of 
fact sensational, ideas have truth only as they copy or 
represent sensations ; and since religious ideas can be so 
interpreted only very indirectly, the empiricist's treatment 
renders them exclusively subjective. Animistic religion 
may thus be completely disposed of as a confused under- 
standing of the biological phenomena occurring in savage 
experience, and accordingly as something which has 
served no purpose, but is to be regarded, rather, as a fun- 
goid growth on human life. And monotheism can at best 
be no more than morahty touched with emotion, morality 
itself being man's necessary pursuit of pleasure or avoid- 
ance of pain, and the emotion, it may be, simply a per- 
verted sexual instinct. 

It would seem, then, that the real ground for the sepa- 
ration between theology and the empirical sciences is not 
simply the obstinate dogmatism of theology, but a positive 



PRAGMATISM AND THEOLOGY 227 

repugnance between two dogmatisms. The empirical 
method has developed within itself an absolutist spirit, 
logically quite inconsistent with its nature, though psy- 
chologically entirely explicable through the completeness 
of its temporary success in solving existing deadlocks in 
knowledge. But when the religious man has sensed more 
or less clearly the fact that the relation between empiri- 
cism and dogmatic theology contains an antithesis between 
two canons of truth, each really as absolute and inviola- 
ble to criticism as the other, it is easy to see which he 
will prefer. It is little wonder that he should submit his 
experience to be interpreted by the point of view which 
finds its norm in a rational faculty, or even in historic 
tradition, rather than by a method which estimates it on 
the basis of the dogma that correspondence to the sensa- 
tional components of psychic experience is the ultimate 
test of truth. 

A fundamental dualism, therefore, remains as a constant 
irritant in the minds of all those who seek to reflect scien- 
tifically upon religious experience and at the same time 
to assimilate the logic of empirical natural science, — a 
dualism that can be remedied only by such a reform of 
the methods in each field as will bring theology out of 
its isolation into the pale of the sciences in general. Now 
such reforms have already begun. On the side of philo- 
sophy the pragmatic form of empiricism offers itself, and 
this is met on the side of theology by the increasing 
sway of historical methods. 

Pragmatic empiricism presents an empirical definition 
of rationality itself. Starting from the evolutionary view 
that man is what he is as the result of successful reactions 
upon environment, it seeks to interpret rationality on the 
basis of man's active nature. That is rational, it says, 
which leads to the smooth functioning of experience by 



22S STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

releasing tensions which have arisen, or which fosters a 
wider functioning than has been realized before. It recog- 
nizes as truth in the old empiricism the fact that the 
discovery of relatively permanent elements in experience 
renders it more rational by making customary, habitual 
functions possible, where the apparent complexity of ex- 
perience tended to produce a condition of static strain. At 
the same time it points out that new tensions are at once 
developed if these permanent elements, instead of being 
recognized as practically useful only, are regarded as 
ultimates; in other words, as the realities of which all 
cognitive states should be copies. This is simply because 
experience has, as a matter of fact, a spontaneous char- 
acter, which cannot be interpreted on the basis that custom 
is the sole criterion of rationality. In experience the new 
is constantly coming to pass along with the recurrence of 
the old. The cognitive function itself is an active one, 
which introduces modifications into experience. Hence 
pragmatic empiricism recognizes emotional interests and 
active faith as factors in determining the rationality of 
experience which have as good rights as has custom. It 
admits the syntheses of experience made from the stand- 
point of values and those effected through voluntary 
reaction upon the world as being just as capable of vali- 
dation as the syntheses accomplished by the method of 
identifying elements.^ 

As has already been implied, pragmatic empiricism also 
presents an empirical definition of reality. Reality is pure 
or immediate experience itself. It is simply the flux of 
things and events characterized by presentness. Some of 
these things and events, it is true, may become cognitive ; 
that is, they may represent other things, but these other 
things are pure experience to come or pure experience in 

» W. James, The Will to Believe, p. 85. 



PRAGMATISM AND THEOLOGY 229 

the past. In other words^ these cognitive experiences do 
not reveal or imply a trans-experiential reality, whether 
in the form of atoms as ultimate beings or in the form 
of unknowable things-in-themselves, nor do they give evi- 
dence of a trans-experiential soul substance; their cogni- 
tive quality, on the contrary, is simply a function of pure 
experience. The function that they fulfill as cognitive 
experiences is an instrumental one ; it is to aid our volun- 
tary nature in realizing values that it has set for itself. 
The cognitive states represent things, not in the sense of 
giving us a reality not otherwise possessed, but in the 
sense of truly or serviceably anticipating pure experience. 
Reality is a given thing ; what cognition yields is truth or 
values. Reality is also a growing thing, — perhaps grow- 
ing in all its parts, at least growing at the points where 
values are posited, where the teleological instruments 
known as concepts are generated, and where the reactions 
made possible by concepts effect the realization of values 
in the unchallenged fullness of pure experience. 

The pragmatic form of empiricism, therefore, can do 
what the old empiricism could not, namely, recognize the 
ethical life as an integral and constitutive part of reality. 
Hence it puts empiricism for the first time in a position 
to entertain religious hypotheses in regard to the ethical 
character of the universe. And furthermore it is able 
to regard the specifically religious needs and reactions as 
means of attaining rationality that are as rightful as are 
those which are more definitely of the intellectual sort. 
Thus at length empiricism takes on a form that does not 
in principle rule out the question of the truth of religion. 

Immanent within theology itself is a movement that 
comes to meet the pragmatic developments of science in 
general. It is to be found in the extension of the historical 
method. The professor of Old Testament exegesis has 



230 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

become the historian of Hebrew reHgion, and the profes- 
sors of New Testament exegesis and church history have 
become Kkewise historians of different periods in the 
development of Christianity.^ The result of this change 
is an even closer approximation to pragmatic empiricism 
than is to be found in the historical movement at large, 
for the historian of religion is less likely than others to 
assume that his work must be " merely " historical, and 
must be kept apart from all questions of value.^ He is 
as apt to insist over against the cause-and-effect histori- 
ans that he is an interpreter of the meaning of events 
and not a mere chronicler, as he is to claim over against 
ecclesiastical dogmatics that those meanings must be found 
in the relation of events to their contexts, rather than by 
means of an a priori scheme involving a violation of 
such relations. 

To sum up the foregoing : one root of the dogmatic 
method has been pointed out to be the belief that the 
supernatural, or divine, belongs to a trans-experiential 
form of being which requires an infallible canon as a 
means of interpreting its revelations. The history of 
Jewish and Christian religion, however, presents as the 
resultant of religious evolution the belief that the ethical 
is the essence of the supernatural. If theology accepts this 
principle, the truth that it seeks is of an empirical sort, 
and the chief reason for the dogmatic method is removed. 
But now pragmatism is transforming empiricism into a 
method that can deal with ethical experience and that can 
interpret the religious search for an ethical universe. And 
further, historical theology, whose results if appropriated 
would emancipate theology from the dogmatic method, is 
already implicitly pragmatic. It would seem therefore as 

1 A. Julicher, Moderne Meinungsverschiedenheiten uber Methode, AufgabCy 
und Ziele der Kirchengeschichte, p. 23. ^ J^id. p. 13. 



PRAGMATISM AND THEOLOGY 231 

though the pragmatic conception of science opened the 
way for theology into the fellowship of the empirical sci- 
ences. 

But the other source of the dogmatic method in theo- 
logy remains to be considered. Theology exists for the 
sake of religion. Its work must be carried on with a view 
to the momentous practical interests that religion involves. 
Now these interests, as was pointed out at the outset, may 
be regarded as furnishing a pragmatic reason for not 
dealing with religion in the empirical way. 

The various practical positions that theology, so far as 
it is prosecuted in Christian circles, is held to be bound to 
sustain have been concentrated in recent theological dis- 
cussion into one, that of the absoluteness of Christianity. 
This conception is one that has been formulated with con- 
scious reference to the evolutionary and historical view- 
point. It is, however, no merely controversial notion, for 
it has its basis in the nature of Christianity itself, as in 
the nature of all religion that can be classed with Chris- 
tianity as redemptive and missionary. The vitality and 
the social effectiveness of religion depend upon the con- 
sciousness of possessing truth, — such truth as is adequate 
for the solution of the most momentous problems of life. 
Now a living conviction of the adequateness of Christian- 
ity is a constituent in the religious consciousness of many 
at least of its adherents ; and on account of the practical 
efficiency of this conviction, both those who possess it 
fully and those with whom it is only partially present re- 
quire a philosophy of the Christian religion to justify it 
and expect a system of Christian truth to presuppose it. 

But it is generally supposed that in the nature of the 
case no empirical method can establish the absoluteness 
of Christianity or any other form of religion. If this be 
true, it would seem that the theologians are reduced to 



232 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the dilemma either of failing to interpret a most valuable 
feature of religious experience, or of reverting to the dog- 
matic method with its inviolable norms. The latter alterna- 
tive appears indeed to be begging the question, for the 
absoluteness of the religion defended would be largely 
contained in the inscrutable canon, but the former is also 
deplorable. 

But the pragmatic empiricist does not drop the word 
absoluteness from his vocabulary. In regard to the pos- 
tulate of empiricism Dewey writes : " The real significance 
of the principle is that of a method of philosophical analy- 
sis, — a method identical in kind (but different in prob- 
lem and hence in operation) with that of the scientist. If 
you wish to find out what subjective, objective, physical, 
mental, cosmic, psychic, cause, substance, purpose, ac- 
tivity, evil, being, quantity — any philosophic term, in 
short — means, go to experience and see what it is expe- 
rienced as." ^ It is possible, accordingly, to give an em- 
pirical meaning to the conception of absoluteness. Now 
from the pragmatic point of view any value is such be- 
cause it satisfies a need. But the satisfaction of a need 
that leaves no element of want still pressing for fulfill- 
ment has the quality of absoluteness. The reason why the 
pragmatist takes pure experience as his ultimate is that 
as an immediate process it sets no questions with regard 
to itself, but is characterized by sufficiency. He recog- 
nizes, however, that experience as a functioning, grow- 
ing thing may develop within itself tensions, unsatisfied 
wants, questions ; and so it comes to pass that a truth or 
an attitude in life which completely releases the active 
functions and gives the rein to practical life again has 
absolute value. Absoluteness, then, when applied to a 
value, must in the very nature of the case be regarded as 

^ Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific MeihodSf ii, 399. 



PRAGMATISM AND THEOLOGY 233 

relative to the problem to be solved. I£ the problem re- 
curs in generically the same way, it may be met again by 
the same type of solution, and the solvent truth may come 
to be labeled by the intellect as absolute truth. Any idea, 
therefore, that leads to the attainment of its goal has 
absoluteness as its characteristic. 

But what is of absolute worth from the standpoint of 
a single desire will not necessarily be so when viewed 
from the standpoint of life as a whole. The establish- 
ment of absolute value for any solution of life's funda- 
mental problem presupposes a systematization of values, 
and this in turn presupposes the guidance of a standard 
value. Yet even the selection of the standard value must 
be pragmatically grounded. This is the crucial point, if 
the system based thereon is to have a scientific character. 
The standard value secures its pragmatic footing by 
being adopted as the inwardly experienced solution of 
the thinker's own most vital problem. Thus it first wins 
objectivity. But this personally objective value is still 
subjective in the eyes of one's fellows, until through sym- 
pathetic appreciation of the issues that they confront, one 
has reflectively developed the problem arising concretely 
in one's individual life and has shown that its solution is 
adequate to the problem as thus enlarged. Here, however, 
arises a difficulty. Each individual's problem in its con- 
crete form has characteristics that reappear perhaps in 
that of no other individual. How then can it be shown 
that a certain value adopted by the individual has general 
objective validity ? 

The appeal of the pragmatist is to history. The his- 
torical unfolding of values furnishes what is needed, — a 
means of determining their real significance by a study 
of the conditions that produced them. Professor Dewey 
has shown that history renders the same service here that 



234 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

experiment does in physical science. "History offers us 
the only available substitute for the isolation and for 
the cumulative recombination of experiment. The early 
periods present us in their relative crudeness and sim- 
plicity with a substitute for the artificial operation of an 
experiment ; following the phenomenon into the more 
complicated and refined form which it later assumes, is a 
substitute for the synthesis of the experiment.^ That is 
to say^ by the historical method, the individual's problem 
may be universalized, and the values of history may be 
presented as claiming objective validity for him. 

It is therefore conceivable that an actual absoluteness 
should be scientifically established for Christianity, con- 
sidered as truth or value, by a psychological and historical 
grounding of the standard value it presents, and by har- 
moniously subordinating to this standard, not only the 
other values of the Christian religion, but also the stand- 
ard values of other religions. But a demonstration of 
absoluteness that seeks to anticipate this pragmatic argu- 
ment, and by the aid of some metaphysical necessity to 
make it needless, can have no scientific value, because 
its presuppositions would inevitably be dogmatic. On the 
other hand, so long as the Christian theologian is unable 
to subordinate the norm of other religions to that of his 
own, and even so long as the upholders of other religions 
cannot find in the Christian religion a common norm, 
the absoluteness of Christianity will lack complete verifi- 
cation. " History is the great voting place for standards 
of value," ^ and if a sufficiently thorough comparative in- 
vestigation of the great religions should reveal a complete 
irreconcilability between their norms, the science that seeks 
to establish the absoluteness of one of them must realize 

1 Philosophical Review, xi, 1902, pp. 107-124. 
* H. Hciffdiug, Problems of Philosophy, p. 168. 



PRAGMATISM AND THEOLOGY 235 

that the complete attainment of its end depends upon the 
outcome of their conflict, and that in the mean time its 
function is to develop as clearly as possible the issue 
involved. 

It must further be recognized that even though a sub- 
ordination of all existing values to one religious standard 
value may be hoped for, the result of the achievement 
will consist in establishing for the religion furnishing and 
conforming to that standard not a final but an actual 
absoluteness. "All worth rests on the relation of events 
and of conditions to life at its different stages, to the ex- 
istence and evolution of life." ^ The theoretical possibiHty 
remains that in a world of growing reality new values may 
arise, and that these may modify the old values, or be 
quite discontinuous with them. Here again it holds true 
that a demonstration of absoluteness which of necessity 
should exclude such a theoretical possibility would be an 
artificial thing and would vitiate, by the dogmatic assump- 
tions that it would be compelled to make, the scientific 
character of the actual absoluteness that might otherwise 
be shown. 

Meanwhile the actual absoluteness of Christianity, so 
far as it can be grounded in religious psychology and 
religious history, is undiminished by discrediting any arti- 
ficial supplement that might be constructed through the 
aid of some supposed metaphysical necessity. The recog- 
nition of the mere possibility that new values may arise, 
which may even be discontinuous with the old, does not 
mean the recognition that there have already arisen needs 
calling for such values ; it merely asserts the sovereignty 
of this additional practical need that, when new needs do 
arise, they should be satisfied by their appropriate values. 
It is true that the maintenance of a right proportion in 

^ H. Hoffding, Problems of Philosophy, p. 154. 



236 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

values may require the subordination of the new needs, 
but at all events they must not be suppressed in advance 
by a jyriori reasoning. This priority of needs to values is 
already an element in the standard value of Christianity. 
No other religion so completely enthrones faith, — the 
quintessence of the soul's spontaneous power, the function 
on which the positing and realizing of values is condi- 
tioned. Hence the self-same pragmatic reasoning that for 
the sake of efficiency in the religious function calls for 
the justification of the absoluteness of our religion re- 
quires also that this absoluteness shall take on no form 
that will suppress spontaneous faith.^ Actual absolute- 
ness sustains faith, dogmatic absoluteness stifles it. The 
pragmatic treatment of religion opens the way for con- 
tinuing the naive sufficiency of spontaneous religious 
experience upon the new basis of a reflectively developed 
conception of religion ; while the dogmatic treatment, by 
offering a substitute for this naive consciousness, impairs 
the most vital element of religion and so tends to vitiate 
the function of theology.^ 

It would have been impossible in the compass of this 
article to map out, even in diagram, a philosophy of reli- 
gion in which the norms of religious truth should be 
historically grounded or to give a detailed method for 
constructing a theology by the use of such norms. The 
present purpose has been realized if a way has been shown 
for theologians to square their points of compass with all 
science that is willing to be pragmatic, and so for philo- 
sopher and theologian each to recognize the rightfulness 
of the other's province, and at the same time to cooperate 
in attaining a unified view of the world. 

1 Cf. W. James, op. cit. pp. 82, 90. 

2 Cf. the implicitly pragmatic views of Troeltsch, Die Ahsolutheit des 
Christentuim und die Reliyionsgeschichte. 



STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY 



IX 

INFLUENCE OF SURROUNDING OBJECTS ON 
THE APPARENT DIRECTION OF A LINE 

Edmund B. Delabakre 

The fact that, in looking at objects about us, we recog- 
nize at once with a high degree of accuracy the relative 
directions of the lines limiting and crossing their sur- 
faces, seems to most persons to need no explanation. 
When I have said to friends who have no very profound 
knowledge of psychology that I was trying to determine 
what it is that makes us see the lines of objects as in- 
clined in a particular direction, they have not infrequently 
replied, " Why, of course we do ; we see them so because 
they are so." This is the natural feeling : there is no 
problem there; we are pretty sensible creatures on the 
whole, and if we have eyes to see with, of course we can 
see things as they really are. Still, there is no psycho- 
logist who accepts the matter quite so simply. Things are 
one fact, and are outside us ; our consciousness is another, 
apart from them. Even to such idealists as believe there 
is really nothing other-than-ourselves, this statement re- 
presents a scientifically expressed truth, and the relation 
of knowing which exists between what we call objects 
and what we call self is one demanding explanation. The 
things do not in any way leave their position outside and 
actually enter into consciousness, nor does the latter 
spread out and enfold them. Rather, the things act phys- 
ically, either directly or through intermediate physical 



240 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

forces^ on sense-organs, and these on nerves, and these in 
turn on brain-cells. Our consciousness, our "seeing some- 
thing/' is not connected directly with the things outside, 
nor with the sense-organ's activity, nor wdth the nerve- 
processes, but only with what is happening in the brain. 
How can a brain activity — which does not resemble the 
external thing in the remotest degree — determine a visual 
awareness of what the thing is like ? There is the real 
problem. It clearly needs to be explained how, at the 
end of such long and complicated series of intermedi- 
ate happenings, our conscious seeing is made what it is, 
whether or not it actually does correctly represent the 
outside things that we think of as causing it. 

Many theories have been suggested in answer to this 
problem. It has been held that the objects give off ema- 
nations, tenuous duplicates of themselves, that have the 
power to penetrate through sense-organ and brain into the 
mind. Or again, that the mind looks out clearly through 
the eyes as window^s, and so sees things as they are. These 
are early childish speculations of immature thought, igno- 
rant of the actual complexity of the facts. Psycholo- 
gists give adherence for the most part to one or the other 
of two views, each of which, however, exists in numerous 
varieties. To the nativists it seems probable that sensa- 
tions aroused through stimulation from objects can ac- 
count for only a part of what we see, and that the spatial 
and some other characteristics of objects, in whole or in 
part, are supplied by the mind itself, are added by it to 
the incoming sensations. Whence the mind derives its 
power to know these verities outside it, may be accounted 
for in various ways. It may be that it possesses innate ideas 
of them, into which it can incorporate the sensations; or 
that it inherits a " form" or tendency to arrange its sensa- 
tions in just that truthful way; or that it has a higher 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 241 

organ than those of sense for knowing the truth of things 
outside. All this is essentially an indeterministic, interac- 
tionist attitude. It gives little in the way of real explana- 
tion, and none that can be made applicable to the intricate 
details of the case. To one whose faith in the universality 
of natural law inclines him toward the deterministic, paral- 
lelistic interpretation of mental and physical phenomena 
and their mutual relation, the empiricist-genetic view ap- 
peals. I may as well frankly state at the outset that, on 
all possible grounds, — scientific, metaphysical, ethical, or 
aesthetic, — this is the only view that seems to me at all 
adequate to deal successfully with the facts. According 
to it, the mind possesses no power or faculty or nature 
of its own that can add anything to sensory experience; 
for it is itself, so far as we can empirically know it, 
nothing but the sensations, and the combinations and 
successions that they form. The things it sees are built 
up within it by the slow process of sense experience, just 
as it itself is a larger sum total of individual experiences ; 
and the ways in which it sees things are all due to the 
sensations that arise within it, and to the manner in which 
their constantly repeated associations with one another 
furnish a basis for their interpretation. 

The seeing of things is not an innate faculty, nor do 
the eyes serve in any real sense as the " windows of the 
soul." We have to learn to see. The eyes themselves, 
through their retinal activities, give us only sensations of 
color. These, alone by themselves, would always remain 
a meaningless chaos of vague feeling, unapplied to the 
objects about us. It is through the movements of the 
eyes that the colors are distinguished, that the chaos is 
separated into parts, and the parts given a definite and 
orderly arrangement ; and the sensations arising from 
eye movements and eye adjustments come to stand for 



242 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

exact dimensions and forms of objects about us only 
through the fact of their close association with the 
more stable and unambiguous movements of hand and 
of locomotion which we make in handling the objects 
looked at. 

The object as we see it is a mental fact, not an external 
fact. It is a visual perception-of-something. What the 
object as an external fact is like we cannot know directly, 
but guess at more or less successfully in scientific and 
philosophical speculation. For practical purposes we do 
not need to know or care. It is sufficient for us that we 
treat the perception as if it were itself the external object, 
and that this procedure serves as a reliable basis for our 
actions. 

Each such perception is an enormously complex struc- 
ture, a mass of closely interwoven present and past sen- 
sations. Into its composition enter the actually present 
sensations of color and of eye movement and adjustment, 
" apperceived " or interpreted and given body and mean- 
ing by the re-arousal of numberless previous sensations of 
color and of movement which the rich variety of our past 
experience has definitely associated with each possible 
present combination of them. Any object, if it is to be 
clearly seen, necessitates an eye adjustment of a definite 
nature. The sensations derived from these motor activities 
recall and imply other definite motor experiences of eye, 
of hand, and of body. Each such motor complex of present 
and revived sensations furnishes the spatial feel, into 
which the colors are filled; and thus the thing as seen 
constructs itself for consciousness. 

It follows that every detail of our perception of the spa- 
tial characteristics of objects must be dependent on some 
particular form of movement adjustment. We distinguish 
differences in length, size, shape, distance, direction, posi- 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 243 

tion, just in so far as we can distinguish the particular 
movements and adjustments adapted to them.^ This we 
can assert with much confidence. For though there are 
those who still believe that these things are to be explained 
by some inborn capacity of the mind, or that they reside 
implicitly in the color sensations themselves, yet the 
evidence for this, the empirical and genetic view, is 
constantly becoming clearer, and is probably accepted as 
convincing by most observers. But the growth of each 
one of these details of space perception is intricate and 
difficult to trace fully, so that each furnishes a problem 
whose solution can be found only by long continued and 
varied experimental research. 

Eight years ago I began to study the accuracy with 
which we can perceive the verticality of a line, as one 
of the relatively simple features of the general problem of 
the nature and genesis of space perception. It has proved 
to be far from a simple problem, however, inasmuch as 
the factors which influence the appearance are very nu- 
merous and complexly intermingled. I have made about 
10,000 single observations myself, and recorded more than 
6000 by other observers, under varying conditions, and 
feel that I am yet far from having solved all the intri- 
cacies of the problem. Some of the results of this in- 
vestigation I have already published.^ In this paper I 
propose to set forth in greater detail, and in the light of 
later tests, the results obtained in one fragmentary part 
of the whole investigation. I shall try to show what is 

1 This does not imply or necessitate that we should be able to discrimi- 
nate delicately between different eye movements and positions themselves, 
when they are isolated. Our ability to do that is very limited. It is only 
when they combine with color sensations and revived material into definite 
perceptions of external objects that they attain any significance or deli- 
cately distinguishable difference. 

2 Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 1904, i, 85-94. 



244 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the influence exerted on the perception of vertical and of 
horizontal directions, and thus on the apparent direction 
of lines in general, by the presence of other visible ob- 
jects besides the line in question. 

When I first approached the problem, my reflections 
were somewhat as follows : Among the possible direc- 
tions of lines, the vertical is one of which we have a 
fairly definite idea, and it ought, therefore, to be easy to 
determine how accurate that idea is, and the influences 
affecting our judgment of it. Among the influences es- 
tablished by earlier observers is that of indirect vision : 
if one fixates a point situated off to one side, of a fine, 
the line appears curved concavely toward the fixation- 
point. Now it is well known that there is a strong ten- 
dency to turn the eye toward any point that attracts 
attention. If therefore the line itself is fixated and bright 
spots are introduced into the field to one side, they will 
tend to attract the eye away from the line, and will there- 
fore very likely produce an effect of the same nature as 
that due to deliberate fixation to one side. Even if the 
eye does not turn, a muscular tension toward the disturb- 
ing spot will nevertheless exist, and this may give rise 
to a similar effect. On testing these conditions, I found 
indeed some effect, but it was very slight and uncertain, 
and so far as it went seemed to be of a nature opposite 
to that which I had anticipated. Later I discovered un- 
expectedly that objects to which I had been paying no 
attention at all, on account of their remoteness from the 
line, were influencing the direction in which it was placed. 
Here also the influence was. slight, and opposite in its 
nature to that of fixation to the side. Accordingly, since 
my earlier paper was published, I have made a more care- 
ful investigation of this matter, and have obtained results 
showing a much larger and more certain influence, and 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 245 

confirming largely, but also greatly adding to, the indi- 
cations of the earlier trials. 

The method of experimentation in all these tests is 
simple. Sometimes I have used a white thread placed in 
front of a dark background, with its bottom end fixed 
and its upper end movable to right and left by means of 
cords in the hands of the observer. Or the thread has 
run from centre to edge of a large black disk which can 
be moved as a whole about its centre. Sometimes the 
thread has been black and its background gray. In many 
cases also a translucent line,, made luminous by a light 
behind it, has been observed, within a field that is other- 
wise entirely dark. In any case, the observer is required 
to move the thread or line until it appears to him to oc- 
cupy a vertical (or horizontal) position, and then its actual 
position, in degrees of deviation from the vertical (or hor- 
izontal) is recorded. A series is always taken with all 
variable conditions excluded, so far as they can be con- 
trolled; and then the special conditions under investiga- 
tion are introduced, and the results compared. 

INTERPRETATION OF RECORDS AND OF ABBREVIATIONS 
USED IN THE TABLES 

In the records of results it is always to be understood 
that the inclination of the line is indicated from the bot- 
tom upward for vertical lines, from left to right for hori- 
zontals. A typical record might read: (10) 0.12R =b .16. 
In this, the figure in parentheses will indicate the number 
of single observations from which the average is computed; 
0.12R will mean that on the average, in these 10 tests, 
the line has appeared vertical when it was placed with an 
upward inclination of 0.12° toward the right; the fol- 
lowing indication shows that the average variation was 
.16°. Following the average, L will indicate inclination 



246 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

upwards to the left ; D^ inclination from left to right down- 
ward ; and U, from left to right upward. If the hue, when 
it appears to be vertical, is actually inclined to the right, it 
will, when it is really vertical, appear to be inclined by a 
similar amount to the left. But the record is always in 
terms of the position in which the line is placed when it 
appears to be vertical or horizontal. 

In a comparison of results, + will indicate that a line 
is placed with its upper end farther to the right for ver- 
ticals, or with its right end farther downward for hori- 
zontals, under the first named condition than under the 
second ; and — will indicate the opposite. 

Other abbreviations are to be understood as follows : — 

A : Normal or standard tests, with the line itself 
directly fixated, either at the bottom (or at the left for 
horizontals) or with free movement of the eye along it ; 
variable conditions excluded so far as possible. 

KA, LA, BA : Normal tests with right eye alone, 
left eye alone, both eyes together, respectively. 

OR, OL, OB : A field of distinguishable objects vis- 
ible peripherally to the right of the fine, to its left, or on 
both right and left sides, respectively. OU, OD : Similar 
fields situated upward or downward from a horizontal line. 

RD, LD: Fixation with the right eye or left eye re- 
spectively on a point of the field situated off to the right 
of the bottom of the line. RG, LG : Similar fixation on 
a point to the left. 

Extr. : Difference between extremes of position recorded 
in a series. 

Obs. : Observer; each is designated by a separate num- 
ber. 

Influence positive : The line appears inclined (reading 
upward for verticals and rightward for horizontals) in a 
direction toward the side from which an influence is ex- 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 



247 



erted, or on which a side-fixation or effort is made, when 
it is really vertical or horizontal. 

Influence negative : — The opposite of the above. 

A. THE EARLIER SERIES OF TESTS 

1. Influence of single bright spots introduced into 
thefl.eld, — Conditions: white line against a dark field, 
illuminated by incandescent lights ; background perfo- 
rated by small holes to right and left of bottom of line, 
situated from ^° to 1|° from it ; any one of the holes can 
be opened alone and illuminated by a light behind it. 



TABLE 


I. — SINGLE 


BRIGHT SPOTS INTRODUCED INTO 


THE PERIPHERAL 


FIELD, FEBRUARY 3 TO MAY 23, 1899. 








Influence Negative. 


Influence Positive. 




Obs. 


No. of 
Tests. 






No Effect. 










% 






% of Cases. 


Amount. 


% of Cases. 


Amount. 




1. 


148 


79 


.22° 


21 


.26° 




2. 


158 


81 


.18 


19 


.23 





7. 


66 


83 


.19 


17 


.40 





9. 


10 


100 


.70 











10. 


71 


50 


.27 


17 


.42 


34 


Average : 


79 


.31 


15 


.33 


7 


Exceptional : 












8 63 


25 


.35 


59 


.28 


16 


11 57 


42 


.20 


33 


.29 


25 



The results appear in Table I. It shows that an actu- 
ally vertical line appears inclined from one third to one 
fifth of a degree upward away from the disturbing spot, 
in a large majority of cases. The amount of influence is 
small, it is subject to many exceptions, and the number 
of tests made is far from sufficient to establish this result 
unequivocally. These tests taken by themselves would 
hardly warrant any definite conclusion. Grouped as above. 



248 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

they indicate feebly a real tendency established by later 
tests. The reality of the tendency, in spite of much vari- 
ability in results, is further indicated by a brief series of 
24 tests, in which brightly shining spots produced a much 
larger influence (.52°) than faint ones (.17°). The results 
are too variable to permit a reliable estimate of the rela- 
tive amount of effect produced by disturbing spots in the 
field to the right and by those to the left of the fixation- 
point, or by spots at different distances from it. 

Two later attempts were .made to determine more defi- 
nitely the effect of these single bright spots, by means of 
a luminous line shining in an otherwise entirely dark field, 
into which the disturbing spots could be introduced. One 
hundred and ten tests were made in May, 1904 ; and 213 
in February, 1906. It is impossible to make from them any 
reliable deductions as to the influence in question, mainly 
because under these conditions the results of the fixation of 
the line itself without disturbing conditions of any kind, so 
far as these are controllable, are exceedingly variable and 
irregular. The influence of the bright spots, if there is 
any, is evidently slight, is easily obscured by the larger 
influence of other effective variables which cannot be ex- 
cluded, and may conceivably itself be variable : the spot 
maybe excluded from attention and produce no effect; 
or it may thrust itself on attention, and then either exert 
its normal influence, or lead to an attempt to resist and 
correct that influence ; and if this correction is over-large 
and undetected, it would then appear to indicate the exist- 
ence of a tendency the opposite of that which really exists. 

It is not surprising, then, that the results are variable 
and to some extent conflicting. I think, however, that 
we may conclude that a single disturbing spot introduced 
into the peripheral field tends to give a vertical line a 
slight apparent inclination with its upper end avay from 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 249 

the spot; but also that many attending circumstances 
may lead to a modification of this tendency. That these 
variations in effect actually exist is still further indicated 
by many introspective observations, of which I cite a 
number. Observer No. 6 at one time "feels that top of 
line is pulled toward the right by the bright spot on the 
left;" but again, " feels that the bright spot pulls the line 
toward it." Observer No. 2 : " Regular curve bulging 
away from the bright spot frequently recorded by this 
observer, though a few cases where the curve is toward 
the light ; " again, " movements of the hne connected ap- 
parently with flashings of the light." Observer No. 1 : 
" Tendency for bright spot to attract eye seems to grow 
larger with continued fixation, but may then be more 
fully allowed for and produce more variation;" "line is 
much more active and changeable when holes are open." 

Another interesting fact that appears clearly in the tests 
with the luminous line is that after a series of measure- 
ments with disturbing spots on either side, the next normal 
measurements show a large apparent inclination toward 
the opposite side. This seems to indicate the existence 
of an after-effect of the same nature as the original influ- 
ence, and of a much larger amount; which, it seems to 
me, in connection with later similar or alternating after- 
effects, is an indication of conditions of tension in the 
muscles of the eye. 

2. Influence of more remote ordinary objects. — For a 
long time I worked with a line moving over a uniform 
gray or black background extending into the peripheral 
field to a distance of about 17° on either side. Beyond 
this background a dark brick wall was visible peripherally 
on one side, and on the other side was the open room 
with its many distinguishable objects. Usually cloth 
screens were placed on both sides, shutting out these ob- 



250 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

jects. But during some trials without the screens I seemed 
to note that the results were influenced. Accordingly I 
made a series of tests (February 18 to March 6, 1902), 
in some of which the brick wall was on the right and the 
large field of peripherally visible objects on the left ; and 
in some of which their position was reversed. With the 
open field to the left, the line was placed farther to 
the left : .16° for the right eye (122 tests), and .14° for 
the left eye (193 tests). With fixation on a point in the 
field off to the right of the line, the influence apparently 
still held, the top of the line being placed for the right 
eye .33° (24 tests), for the left eye .43° (29 tests), far- 
ther to the left when the open field was on the left. 
With side-fixation toward the left, no difference resulted 
in 42 tests. The influence here was apparently the same 
as that of the single bright spots : objects visible in the 
peripheral field cause the line to appear with its upper 
end inclined slightly away from them. Again, however, 
the influence is so small that it might indicate nothing 
more than the ordinary variability of the normal judg- 
ments of the line, except when taken in connection with 
the similar results of the other series of tests. 

It is evident that, without using a luminous line in an 
entirely dark enclosure, no field can be arranged within 
which no differences can be distinguished. The trouble 
with the luminous line is that judgments with it are nat- 
urally so exceedingly variable that it is almost impossible 
to determine the influence of any special conditions. But 
if we use any other kind of line, however carefully we 
may try to make the background and side screens uniform, 
they will nevertheless present numberless little differences 
in texture and illumination, in distinguishable spots and 
lines, in light and shade. In actual use, with attention 
concentrated on the line itself, these ordinarily escape 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 251 

notice; but they may suddenly flash into consciousness 
and prove a disturbing influence. I have a great many 
records in which this fact is noted by different observers, 
but in most cases they do not aid in determining the 
exact influence exerted. In case definite hues are visible 
peripherally, they may influence the apparent inclination 
of the main line by comparison of direction instead of 
in the manner already described for peripherally visible 
objects without definite lines. Thus in one case when, in 
order to exclude vertical lines bordering the field on either 
side, I had made the lines bordering the immediate field 
about the movable line incline upward and outward from 
the bottom point of the line, an observer noted a disturb- 
ing influence from these side lines. I therefore had him 
make three series of ten trials each : in one case allowing 
the left-hand oblique line to influence his judgment, with 
the result that the line was placed at .50° inclination to 
right, =t .42° ; in one case neglecting both oblique lines, 
.70° left rt .15 ° ; and finally with accompanying con- 
sciousness of the right-hand oblique line, 1.30° left ±.41°. 
The result here is opposed to the usual one with disturb- 
ing objects on right and left, but this is due probably to 
the fact that comparison is made with definite lines known 
to be oblique, and perhaps judged to be more oblique than 
they really are, which would cause the apparent vertical 
to be placed farther away from them. It is to be noted 
also that the variability of judgment is much greater 
when it is determined by such indirect comparison. 

3. Influence of predominant awareness of field to 
right or to left of line, — It is impossible, when examin- 
ing a line, to be unaware also of more or less of the field 
surrounding it; and it is not easy to so turn attention 
as to make this awareness cover equally the fields on both 
sides. Again, it is possible to assume a feeling, dif&cult to 



252 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

describe, as if one were looking out through the right eye 
alone (and this whether right eye or left eye alone is act- 
ually used in fixation, or both eyes together), — a feeling 
which is accompanied usually by a greater awareness of 
the field to the left of the fixation-point, and which for 
brevity I call the "feeling of right-eye fixation," which- 
ever eye is actually used; or to adopt on the other hand 
a feeling of " left-eye fixation, " with accompanying 
awareness of the field to the right. These differences in 
feeling are probably dependent on muscular conditions ; 
for as one changes from the one to the other there is a dis- 
tinct feeling as if the eyes were moving, even though one 
feels at the same time that they are still accurately con- 
verged on the fixation-point. It is doubtful if a real move- 
ment of the eyes occurs, though certainly^ if it does not, 
there is a change in their muscular tensions. That the 
latter is the true basis of the feeling is indicated by ob- 
servations both by the "microscope method" and by the 
"after-image method," discussed later, which show that, 
whichever side of the field may be thus emphasized, either 
by the simpler direct awareness or with the complication 
of these eye-f eehngs, the direction of the eye may actually 
be toward either side of the line. 



TABLE II.l — PREDOMINANT AWARENESS OF FIELD TO RIGHT OR TO LEFT 
RESPECTIVELY. FEBRUARY-APRIL, 1899; FEBRUARY-MAY, 1900. 



Obs. 


Awareness to L. 


Awareness to R. 


1 

2 


(16) +0.50° 
(10) +0.60 


(20) +0.15° 
(10) —0.10 



I have tried only a few experiments to determine the 
influence of this difference on the apparent inclination 
of the vertical. The results are pfiven in Table II. This 

1 Sec list of abbreviations, p. 245. 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 253 

would seem to indicate an influence the opposite of that 
already found for disturbing objects, namely in this case 
an apparent inclination of the vertical toward the side of 
which there is greater awareness. More recent observa- 
tions confirm this conclusion, though with important modi- 
fications due to the portion of the line fixated, which 
will be discussed later, under B, § 6. 

My notes show that it is very difficult to maintain ac- 
curately the desired type of fixation during actual exami- 
nation of the line. This is usually more or less prolonged, 
and the fixation changes easily and unconsciously from 
one type to the other; "the particular attempted method 
of fixation cannot be maintained unchanging," and which 
prevails at the actual moment of decision as to the posi- 
tion of the line cannot be known. I give these results, 
however, few as they are, since they are in accord with 
my later analysis of the influences at work, and hence 
serve as a slight further support to its validity. 

4. Influence of number of distinguishable objects ; in- 
fluence of illumination, — The general effect of a wide 
field of visible objects is to steady the eye and render its 
judgments more uniform and reliable. A single luminous 
line with nothing else visible is subject, as we shall see 
later, to the greatest degree of variability in the positions 
wherein it may appear vertical. Increase the general illumi- 
nation, so that the surroundings of the line become visible, 
and the judgments become less variable, even though it 
may be only a fairly uniform field of cardboard, cloth, or 
blank wall that thus comes into view. Tables III and IV 
show this effect ; the variability is less when a wider field 
or a larger number of surrounding objects becomes vis- 
ible, even though these may furnish no direct basis for 
comparison. 

This fact of the great steadying value of surrounding 



254 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 



TABLE III. — EFFECT OF INTRODUCING INTO THE FIELD A NUMBER OF DIS- 
TINGUISHABLE OBJECTS, — PAPER, THREAD, HANDKERCHIEF, ETC. FEB- 
RUARY 15, 1902. OBSERVER NO. 1. 



Normal 


Steadying Objects 


RA 


LA 


RA 


LA 


(21) 0.10 Ri. 18 
(10) 0.27 L±. 10 
(5) 0.08 L i .23 


(10) 0.12 R J- .25 
(5) 0.22 R i .23 
(3) 0.60 Ri. 11 


(5) 0.52 R ± .05 


(5) 0.20 R ±.15 


Av. 0.03 Li. 18 
Extr. 0.80 


0.23 R ± .25 
1.10 


0.15 


0.50 


Difference in variability- 
Difference in extremes 


— 0.13 

— 0.65 


— 0.10 

— 0.60 



TABLE IV.^ — COMPARISON OF RESULTS, IN ONE CASE EXAMINING THE LINE 
IN ORDINARY WAY, WITH A FAIRLY WIDE FIELD VISIBLE, CONSISTING OF 
SCREENS, , OBJECTS BEYOND THEM PERIPHERALLY, ETC. ; IN THE OTHER 
CASE LOOKING AT THE LINE THROUGH A TUBE, BLACKENED INSIDE, 
WHICH THOROUGHLY CUTS OFF THE VIEW OF EVERYTHING EXCEPT A CIR- 
CULAR PORTION OF THE DARK FIELD AROUND THE LINE. IN FEBRUARY, 
WITHOUT THE TUBES, ILLUMINATION WAS FROM A WINDOW AT THE LEFT, 
THE FIELD ON THE RIGHT BEING SOMEWHAT BRIGHTER AND FULLER OF 
OBJECTS BEYOND THE SCREEN ; IN MARCH THE FIELD WAS MORE OPEN 
ON THE LEFT. FEBRUARY AND MARCH, 1902. OBSERVER NO. 1. 





No Tubes. 


Tubes. 


Difference ^ 




RA 


LA 


RA 


LA 


RA 


LA 


2/10 
2/11 


(5) 1.44R±.13 

(5) 0.80R±.05 
(5) 0.36Li:.12 
(5) 0.24R±.ll 


(5) O.SORi.OO 

(5) 0.92R±.07 
(5) l.OGLi.GS 
(5) 0.26R±.10 


(5) 2.00R±.18 
(5) 1.50R±.19 
(5) 2.10Ri.l3 
(5) 1.70R±.34 

(15)0.70R±.13 
(5) 0.18Ri.l8 


(5) 0.04R-I-.17 
(5)0.26Li.l6 
(5) 0.36R±.20 
(5) 0.52L±.25 

(21)0.13R±.17 
(2)n.l5R±.05 


+0.56; +.05 
+0.06 ; +.06 
+1.30 ; +.08 


—0.46; +.08 
-0.76; +.07 
-0.56; +.13 


3/8 


+1.46; +.23 


—0.78; +.15 






3/10 
3/11 


(5) 0.38Rd::.07 
(5) 0.08R±.07 


(2) 3 0.00 ±-00 
(5) 0.14L±.06 








+0.21 ; +.08 


+0.27 ; +.11 





^ See list of abbreviations, p. 245. 

2 The first difference given in each case is that in position, the second 
that in variability, when tubes are used as compared with " no tubes." 
* Omitted in calculating differences, because of small number, 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 



255 



TABLE V.l — COMPARISON OF RESULTS WITH DAYLIGHT ILLUMINATION, 
FALLING IN ONE CASE FROM A WINDOW BEHIND TO THE RIGHT, AND 
ILLUMINATING MORE FULLY THE LEFT PART OF THE FIELD, IN THE 
OTHER CASE FROM A WINDOW BEHIND TO THE LEFT, WITH RIGHT PART 
OF FIELD MORE FULLY ILLUMINATED. SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER, 1901. 
OBSERVER NO. 1. 



Condition. 


RA 


RD 


RG 


LA 


LD 


LG 


Window on R. 
Window on L. 


(15) 0.20 R 
(44) 0.68 R 


(5) 0.12 R 
(15) 0.07 R 


(5) 0.70 R 
(15) 1.20 R 


(20) 0.55 L 
(53)0.33 R 


(10) 1.10 L 
(15) 0.71 L 


(10) 0.15 R 
(20) 0.42 R 


Difference 


+ 0.48 


— 0.05 


+ 0.50 


+ 0.88 


+ 0.39 


+ 0.27 



objects is often clearly felt by the observer. " These val- 
ues are much more uncertain and irregular than those of 
yesterday, probably owing to closing up of side of field 
and thus removing steadying objects ; " " Daylight illumi- 
nation is less fatiguing;" "These judgments made with 
clear skies are more accurate than those made when clouds 
hid the sun." Actual comparison of the results obtained 
on cloudy, medium, and bright days shows too large a 
variability to permit deductions, probably because com- 
plicating conditions were at work. But there is always 
a greater feeling of certainty and ease, greater rapidity, 
much less hesitation, vacillation, and dissatisfaction with 
the final position, in setting up the vertical when there 
are many objects about and the illumination is good. 
The later tests will give much stronger confirmation of 
this than can be found in these earlier ones. 

The illumination has an effect also on the position in 
which the line is placed, — on its apparent inclination. 
If the source of illumination is such that the field to one 
side of the line is made more pronounced than that to the 
other side, that field will exert an influence on the per- 
ception of the line's direction, usually causing its upper 

^ See list of abbreviations, p. 245. 



256 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

end to appear inclined more toward the opposite side. 
This effect is seen clearly in Table V, wherein it is also 
evident that the same influence holds when fixation is off 
to one side of the line as when the line itself is directly 
examined. In Table IV the nature of the influence is not 
so certain. In the February tests, when no tubes are used, 
a larger field of objects becomes visible on the right, and 
its normal influence on the line is seen in the results 
obtained with the right eye. But the effect with the left 
eye was uniformly opposite in direction. If to it also 
the right field was the more prominent and exerted its 
usual effect, the deviation in direction with and without 
the use of the tubes should, it would seem, be of the same 
nature as with the right eye. I assume, however, that, if 
these results are really due to this effect of the side field 
and not to other complicating conditions, the difference 
in the fields was not so great but that, with the left eye 
alone in use, the naturally greater extent of its field of 
view toward the left side more than counterbalanced the 
greater relative prominence of the field on the right. In 
the March tests, on the other hand, the field is more open 
to the left, and each eye shows a like result ; but here the 
line is seen, when vertical, with its upper end apparently 
inclined more to the side of the open field, contrary to 
the usual result. This may be one of the untraceable 
effects of the great complication of conditions always 
present. How great and how untraceable this complexity 
is becomes evident in examining the results obtained by 
the normal examination of the line with no variable condi- 
tions present so far as they can be detected and controlled. 
On two days (February 10, 11) the average positions 
given to RA and to LA in different trials differ from one 
another by as much as 1.80° and 1.92° respectively, — a 
greater difference than that we are attempting to use as 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 257 

indication of definite influences. What wonder, then, 
when so many influences are at work whose presence and 
nature cannot be detected, if a much smaller real influence 
becomes overwhelmed and disguised in the mass of total 
complex influences ? Yet even here a plausible explana- 
tion can be found, tracing the effect to the influence of 
the visible peripheral fields. The left field is here more 
open, it is true ; but the right field also offers distinguish- 
able features, and our later results will show that the right 
field almost always exerts a much stronger relative influ- 
ence than the left field. The more open left field here, 
then, was not sufficiently great in its relative prominence 
to overcome the less prominent but naturally stronger 
right field. 

5. The number of experiments in these earlier series 
is much too small, the results gained from them are too 
little certain in their interpretation, to warrant any defi- 
nite conclusions when taken by themselves. They are, 
however, suggestive, and together indicate a considerable 
probability of the truth of certain facts which are con- 
firmed by the later tests. Such conclusions as are justi- 
fied by both series together will be found concisely stated 
in the summary at the end of this paper. 

IB. THE LATER SERIES OF TESTS 

Under all the conditions tested thus far the influences 
exerted, if any at all are really indicated, were very slight 
and uncertain. But in afl these cases the distinor-uishable 
features were either few in number (single bright spots), 
or slight in intensity, interest, and individuality (the un- 
avoidable spots and differences in texture and in light 
and shade on a background intended to be uniform), or 
remote in position. It therefore seemed desirable to 
establish conditions under which these features could be 



258 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

greatly strengthened. Accordingly I prepared a disk of 
black cardboard, 230 mm. in diameter, revolving about 
the centre, with a white thread extending from the cen- 
tre upward to the edge. A rectangular opening, about 
12x100 mm., was cut in a page of newspaper, and on 
the paper, to right and left of the opening, were pasted 
irregularly a large number of red, green, and blue wafers 
of many shapes and sizes: circles, diamonds, stars, spades, 
clubs, etc. This was then fastened over the disk in such 
a manner that the white thread ran longitudinally through 
the opening and had on each side of it, therefore, iirst 
a narrow black field and then a wide field containing a 
multitude of distinguishable objects. Two curtains of 
black cloth were secured to the disk. When both were 
lowered, the field about the white line was entirely black. 
When either one alone was raised, or both together, the 
corresponding fields on either or both sides became visible, 
with their numerous striking contents approaching to 
within a short distance from the line. The eye of the 
observer was 950 mm. distant from the field under obser- 
vation, and a head-rest was used to make the position uni- 
form. The disk was set at the end of a large rectangular 
box, inclosed on all sides by black cloth. The head of 
the observer was covered by a large cloth shutting out all 
light except enough entering above from behind to make 
the field well visible. The scale of degrees by means of 
which the angular deviation of the line from verticality 
was measured was too remote vertically to be visible when 
the centre of rotation was fixated ; moreover it was made 
almost entirely invisible unless illuminated during the read- 
ings by an incandescent light from behind; and the re- 
sults, as well as the statements of the observers, show 
that its presence did not affect the position in which the 
line was placed. 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 259 

It need hardly be said that the observers were not in- 
formed as to the purpose of the tests, or as to any proba- 
ble result. So far as my own results are concerned, though 
I usually recorded my own results and was thus aware of 
them as they occurred, yet it is clear that neither pre- 
formed theory nor actual knowledge of results influenced 
the positions which I considered vertical under the differ- 
ent conditions; for (1) my results did not differ materially 
from those of other observers ; (2) nor from my own 
when I had the positions recorded by some one else, with- 
out knowledge of results on my own part; and (3) the 
actual results were really opposed to what I should have 
anticipated at that time, namely, that a field of distin- 
guishable objects to one side would attract the eye un- 
consciously toward itself and thus produce the effect of 
side-fixation to that side. 

The results are too numerous to be given in detail, and 
we must be contented with averages. These averages are 
usually derived from thirty measurements made under 
each condition for each individual, — ten with the right 
eye, ten with the left eye, and ten with both together; 
though in some cases they represent a much larger number, 
and in a very few cases less. The tests were all made in 
January and February, 1904. Results with right eye, left 
eye, and both eyes are averaged together, because the 
differences between them are not of sufficient importance 
for special notice, and to have separated them would have 
shown no essential difference in the typical result. Tables 
VI and VII present the details as thus worked out. 
Averages showing an influence of less than 0.50° are 
considered as indicating "no effect," and all exceptions 
to the typical result fall among these. 

1. Influence on apparent direction of line. — The typ- 
ical result is announced in Table VII. With the right 



260 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

field open, the line appears inclined more to the left, aver- 
aging in amount 0.91° ± .26. With the left field open, 
the line appears inclined more to the right, averaging in 
amount 0.50° ±.26. The difference between the two 
fields averages an apparent incHnation of 1.40° ±.36 
farther to the right for the left field. Only four individ- 
uals out of the seventeen show any trace of an exception 
to this result, and for them the influence is very slight or 
wanting altogether. 



TABLE VI.^ — AVERAGE INFLUENCES OF PERIPHERAL FIELD OF DISTINGUISH- 
ABLE OBJECTS. JANUARY AND FEBRUARY, 1904. 





OR 


OB 


OL 


A 


OL 


Obs. 


Av. 


Av. Var. 


Av. 


Av. Var. 


Av. 


Av. Var. 


Av. Var. 


compared 
with OR 


1 


+0.892 


+.18 


+0.57 


+.20 


-0.88 


+.21 


+.21 


—1.31 


18 


+0.78 


25 


—0.32 


16 


—0.33 


21 


.29 


—1.09 


19 


+0.62 


.82 







—0.80 


.26 


.80 


—1.42 


21 


--1.32 


.25 


0.00 


.12 


—0.85 


.36 


.25 


—2.17 


28 


--0.70 


.27 


0.00 


.80 


—0.46 


.28 


.24 


—1.15 


25 


--0.87 


.30 


+0.35 


.35 


—0.07 


.39 


.35 


—0.94 


27 


--0.86 


.26 


+0.17 


.14 


—0.13 


.56 


.89 


—0.99 


28 


--0.78 


.80 


+0.68 


.06 


—0.52 


.34 


.38 


—1.26 


29 


--1.20 


.56 


+0.64 


.29 


—0.34 


.57 


.47 


—1.11 


80 


--0.82 


.41 


—0.56 


.84 


-1.35 


.26 


.22 


—1.67 


31 


+1.77 


.48 


+0.63 


.38 


—0.58 


.41 


.37 


—2.80 


82 


+1.09 


.24 


+0.30 


.20 


—0.64 


.34 


.30 


—1.73 


83 


+0.73 


.80 


+0.75 


.30 


—0.14 


.39 


.88 


—0.87 


Av. 


+0.91 




+0.27 




—0.50 






—1.39 




+ .26 




+ .34 




+ .26 






+ .36 


20 


+1.00 


.21 


+1.28 


.15 


+0.58 


.19 


.20 


—0.42 


22 


+0.44 


.36 


—0.29 


.30 


—0.01 


.37 


.39 


—0.47 


24 


+0.01 


.81 





.21 


+0.05 


.28 


.38 


+0.04 


26 


+0.11 


.49 




.53 


+0.05 


.37 


.41 


-0.06 


Av. 




+.32 
±.08 




+.25 
+.09 




+.34 
+.08 


+.32 
+.07 





1 See List of Abbreviations, p. 245. 

2 Not actual positions are given, but difference in position when side fields 
are exposed as compared with that in the standard (A) tests. 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 



261 



TABLE Vn. — SUMMARY OF RESULTS OF TABLE VI. 



Number of individuals tested 


17 

68 




2.^Rft 





Typical result : 

Witli right field open, line seems inclined upward more to the left. 
With left field open, line seems inclined upward more to the right. 



Follow type 

Show no influence (less than 0.50°) 



(a) by both OR and OL influencing in same 
direction 



(b) by both OR and OL showing reverse in- 

fluence 

(c) in relative effect of OR compared with OL 



13 
4 

[ 7 present at 
j least one case ; 
j nonesoonaver- 



' 2 present at 
least one case ; 
none typical 



45 
101 



The field to the left evidently exerts an influence on 
the average only about one half as strong as that on the 
right. For eleven individuals, this preponderance of the 
right field was evident, ranging in amount from 14% to 
66%, and averaging 43% ±18. In case of only one in- 
dividual was the influence equal, and in two the left field 
was apparently more powerful than the right. 

When both fields were open together, the greater 
strength of the influence of the right field was again 
evident (in case of ten individuals out of fourteen). In 
only one case did the left field show the stronger influence ; 
in three cases they were apparently equal. 

When the results for right eye, for left eye, and for 
both eyes together are separately examined (these difPer- 

^ Of these, 4 incline toward exception a (none toward & or c) ; 2 incline 
toward type; 4 show absolutely no influence. 



262 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

ences I have not presented in the tables), there appears 
no typical difference in the manner in which they are 
affected by the open fields. The open field on the right, 
for instance, showed a larger effect on the right eye in 
case of five individuals, on the left eye in case of seven, 
an equal effect once. The open fields singly affect both 
eyes used together : in four cases more as they affect the 
right eye alone ; in one case more as they affect the left 
eye ; in four cases about midway between ; in two cases to 
a larger or smaller degree than either alone. These results 
are therefore probably quite fortuitous, and there is no 
indication that any general tendency is followed. Simi- 
larly the added influences of the two fields tested separately 
is for both eyes : in four cases more than for either eye 
singly; in five cases less; in five cases between the two. 

The actual difference between the effect of right and of 
left field, as shown in the tables, corresponds usually also 
to the subjective impression of the observer, when any 
difference is noted. Most observers could detect no differ- 
ence. Four observers noted that the line inclined away 
from the open field. Three observers thought that it in- 
clined toward the open field, but this impression was op- 
posed to their actual results in every case, and was prob- 
ably due to the fact that when the field was first opened 
the eye actually wandered into it and produced the effect 
of side-fixation, which afterward disappeared when the 
verticality of the line was really attended to. 

Most of the observers were entirely unconscious of the 
presence of the visible objects at the moment when the 
judgment of the line's verticality was made. For instance: 
" Sometimes notice their presence, more often not ; in open 
field tests, hardly any attention is actually given to objects, 
the verticality of the line being the only thought and clear 
perception " (Observer No. 1). " The open fields seem to 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 



263 



make no dijfference ; would n't have known they were 
there" (No. 20). "When judgment of line was made, 
not at all conscious of open field being there " (Obs. 22 
and others). Similar remarks were frequent. One observer, 
however (No. 31), claimed that he was conscious, in judg- 
ing the line, of the presence of the side fields when open ; 
and his results show an unusually large degree of the typ- 
ical influence. Still another observer (No. 21) discovered 
that he could make his judgments either while neglecting 
entirely the open field, or while fully and clearly aware of 
its presence during his observation of the line. Separate 
series were therefore tried in his case, in one of which the 
peripheral objects were neglected, and in the other were 
considered, as fully as possible. In both cases the results 
showed the typical influence, but much more strongly 
when he took the objects into conscious consideration. 
The results of these two methods in his case are averaged 
together in Table YI, but are shown separately in Table 
VIII. Testing this distinction on myself, I have found 
either no difference at all in the results, or a decided lack 
of uniformity. 



TABLE Vin.^ — RELATIVE EFFECT WHEN SIDE FIELDS ARE DELIBERATELY 
NEGLECTED WHEN OPEN, OR ARE TAKEN INTO CONSCIOUS CONSIDERA- 
TION. FEBRUARY 13, 1904. OBSERVER NO. 21. 



OR 

OL 

Difference 



Average, Neglected. 



+ 0.99 ± .23 

— 0.14 J- .30 

— 1.13 



Average, Considered. 



+ 1.65 ± .28 
— 1.55 ^ .43 
— 3.20 



33 
30 



2. Influence on variability . — From the preceding 
tables it is evident that the amount of variation from the 
average in establishing the verticality of a line is about 

1 See list of abbreviations, p. 245. 



264 



STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 



the same whether both fields are closed, or that on the 
right is open ( ± 0. 32°) ; is slightly greater when the left 
field alone is open (±0. 3i°) ; and is considerably lessened 
when both fields together are open (±0. 25°). The same 
fact can be shown by another method of computation. If, 
when the difference between the variability of the measui^e- 
ments of type A and that for the open fields is small, we 
assign each such case an arbitrary value of 1 ; when the 
difference is medium, a value of 2 ; and when the differ- 
ence is large, a value of 3 ;.and then multiply the number 
of cases of each kind by its arbitrary value, add together 
the results, and compute percentages, we obtain Table IX. 
It is clear that whether we evaluate each single series of 
measurements separately, or evaluate the average of all 
series of tests made by each individual, the results cor- 
roborate the conclusions announced above. 



TABLE IX. — RELATIVE VARIABILITY. 





By General Average of Each Individual. 


By Separate Series of Tests. 




Less than 
for A. 


Equal. 


Greater. 


Less. 


Equal. 


Greater. 


OR 
OL 
OB 


14% 

12 

59 


72% 

67 

12 


12% 

21 

29 


23% 

29 

50 


48% 

30 

28 


29% 
41 



3. Variability and position as influenced by degree 
of illumination and thus by the number of distinguish- 
able objects. — I have made many measurements of the 
normal A-values at various times, in some of which was 
used a line illuminated by daylight and thus surrounded 
by a field presenting various distinguishable features, and 
in others a luminous line in an entirely dark field. In 
Table X, I have calculated the average and average vari- 
ation for each separate series, usually of five or ten mea- 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 



265 



surements, and then the average and average variation of 
all these average positions, and again of the average varia- 
tions from them. 



TABLE X. — COMPARISON OF LUMINOUS LINE WITH LINE ILLUMINATED 
BY DAYLIGHT. 





Observer No. 1. 


Observer No. 24. 


Observer No. 32. 




Daylight. 


Luminous. 


Daylight. 


Luminous. 


DayUght. 


Luminous. 


R. Eye : 

Number 

Av. position 

Averag-e 

Av. var 

Av. variation : 

Average 


169 

L16R 

.44 

.20 
.10 


383 

1.29 R 

.70 

.38 
.14 


10 

0.20 L 
.24 


10 

0.84 L 
.20 


10 
0.17 R 

.15 


20 
2.60 R 

.43 






Both Eyes : 

Number 

Av. position : 

Average 


183 

0.25 R 

.25 

.20 

.08 


55 

L15R 

.20 

.35 

.14 


26 
0.05 L 

.30 


10 
0.24 L 

.58 


20 
0.08 R 

.37 


35 
1.04 R 


Av. variation : 

Average 

Av. var 


.43 


Left Eye : 


360 

0.05 R 
.41 

.20 
.06 


206 

1.02 R 
.52 

.33 
.14 


10 
0.04 L 

.31 


10 
0.43 L 

.68 


10 
0.21 R 

.27 


20 


Av. position : 

Average 

Av. var 

Av, variation : 

Average 


1.62 R 
.40 







Average increase in variability with 
luminous line 



Right Eye. 



+ .14 



+ .16 



Left Eye. 



+ .18 



The results obtained by means of the luminous line are 
almost without exception more varied and inconstant than 
when a line is used illuminated by daylight. The more a 
given line is surrounded by a field in which numerous 
varied objects or features of texture and illumination are 



266 STUDIES IN" PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

distinguishable, the steadier is the eye in regarding it, 
and the more uniform and reliable the estimates made of 
its direction. This result fully agrees with that obtained 
by comparing the field open on both sides with the fully 
closed field in the other series of results just described, 
and with the results of the earlier tests. It is also fully 
supported by introspective observation. The luminous 
line is felt to be shifty and unrehable. The eye fatigues 
much more quickly in its examination, and there is a 
decidedly diminished certainty in assigning to it a final 
position. With such variabihty in the results of attempt- 
ing to determine a normal average for the apparent ver- 
tical when conditions are made as uniform as possible, it 
is evident that it becomes very difficult to use the lumi- 
nous line for determining the influence of any special 
conditions. Though I have made many trials with it, I 
have not yet been able to arrive at satisfactory results in 
an endeavor to determine by its aid the influence of 
single bright spots or of fixation to one side of the line. 
What can be splendidly determined by its aid, however, 
is the effect of voluntary effort to make the line seem 
inclined in either direction, and the effect of the intro- 
duction of predominant muscular tensions to one side or 
the other. But of these I must write on another occasion. 
The apparent position of lines also, as well as the vari- 
ability, is influenced by the number of distinguishable 
objects about them, even though the field on either side 
is apparently of equal importance in this regard. This is 
shown clearly in Table VI, by comparison of results with 
both fields open (OB) and those with both fields closed 
(A) ; and again in Table X. The conclusion which is 
seemingly justified by these tables is that the smaller the 
number of visible objects the greater is the fendency for 
the line to ajDpear inclined to the left. There is but one 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 267 

exception to this rule, namely, in case of Observer No. 
24; possibly the fact that this observer is left-handed 
may have some bearing on the result. But even in his 
case, the greater the number of objects the more truly 
vertical is the line placed ; and perhaps this is the more 
accurate way to formulate the rule. More recent addi- 
tional tests with myself as observer confirm these deduc- 
tions. For these I used another form of apparatus, — a 
black disk with white thread, about a foot in front of 
which was a dark screen with a three-fourths inch hole 
in it. I made tests under four conditions : (a) with a 
luminous line on the old apparatus (or, on the new one, 
a lessening of the illumination to such an extent that the 
white line alone could barely be seen) ; and with the new 
apparatus ; (b) with the eye close to the hole in the screen, 
and nothing but the black disk visible about the line ; 
(c) with the eye well back from the screen, the white line 
visible crossing behind the hole, and many ordinary ob- 
jects visible in all directions beyond the screen; (d) with 
the eye back as before, and the screen covered over, 
except at the hole, with a page of newspaper ; or with a 
smaller screen used, so that the surrounding objects ap- 
proached closer to the line. This gave a series with an 
increasing number and prominence of visible objects in 
the successive methods of observation. Table XI gives 
the results. It confirms the above given rule, and shows 
that it holds also for horizontal lines. In it the amount 
of deviation is given as compared with that obtained by 
method (d), which is therefore counted as 0. The + sig- 
nifies, as usual, for vertical lines a setting-up farther to the 
right, hence when vertical an apparent inclination farther 
to the left; and for horizontal lines, an apparent inclina- 
tion of the right end farther upward. The letters denote 
the above described methods of observation. It is worthy 



268 



STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 



of note that by means of method (d) I obtained a series of 
13 measurements with an average variability of only .005°, 
by far the most uniform series ever secured, and that 
many other series showed an unusually small variability. 



TABLE XI. — INFLUENCE OF NUMBER OF DISTINGUISHABLE OBJECTS. 
FEBRUARY AND MARCH, 1906. OBSERVER NO. 1. 





(d) 


(c) 


(b) 


(a) 


Right Eye 

Vertical Lines : 

Position 


. 
151 


+ 0.68 
130 


+ 1.55 
40 


+ 3.87 
35 






Horizontal Lines : 

Position 

Variability 




J- .22 
145 


+ 0.67 

± .35 

21 


+ 0.68 

+ .49 

145 








Left Eye 

Horizontal Lines : 






i.l6 

10 


+ 0.81 

+ .29 

10 


+ 0.68 

+ .40 

10 


Variability 







4. Influence of disturhing sounds, — In the case of 
seven individuals, tests were made to see whether distrac- 
tion of attention by sounds to one side or the other would 
influence the apparent direction of the line. The sounds 
were made by means of a noisy motor situated in one 
series to the right, in another to the left, of the observer, 
who was not informed that these sounds were deliberately 
intended as a factor in the investigation. Usually the 
observer, while aware of the sounds, paid no attention to 
them. No uniform influence was apparent, either during 
the actual presence of the sound or as an after-effect dur- 
ing the period of silence that followed. 

5. Some sj^ecial variations in conditions, — It is well 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 



269 



known that moving objects are peculiarly insistent in 
their demands on attention. I tried a short series of tests 
recently, in which the fingers of one hand were held to one 
side or the other of a short line (1 cm.), and kept moving 
about during its examination. The results, to be found 
in Table XII, show the previous typical influence, slightly 
increased in degree. 



TABLE XII. 1 — MOVING OBJECTS VISIBLE PERIPHERALLY; RIGHT EYE. FEB- 
RUARY 10, 13, 1906; COMPARED WITH PREVIOUS RESULTS FOR RIGHT 
EYE. OBSERVER NO. 1. 





1906. 
Moving Objects. 


1906. 
Objects Motionless. 


1904. 
Objects Motionless. 


A 

OR 
OL 
Diff. 


(40) 3.00 R ± .33 
(16) 3.45 R i .35 
(16) 2.63 R ±.25 

— 0.82 


(5) 2.28 R ± .26 

(10) 1.77 R ±.31 

(10) 1.11 R ±.45 

— 0.66 


(10) 0.77 R ± .25 

(10) 1.21 R ±.17 

(10) 0.24 R ± .18 

— 0.97 



In order to determine the influence of more usual 
surroundings, I made a short series of tests with an appa- 
ratus consisting of a cord attached to the floor below, 
moving freely along a horizontal cord above, and seen 
against a background consisting of the numerous objects 
of an ordinary living-room. Care was used not to identify 
its positions by comparison with particular portions of 
objects seen behind it. The field on either side could be 
cut off by means of wide draperies hung vertically just 
behind the line. Testing these conditions with Observer 
No. 33, he showed a very slight tendency to place the 
line farther to the right with the left field open than with 
the right one open; but as these differences were less 
than 0.50°, they can be regarded as indicating no sure in- 
fluence. My own results, with five measurements made 
under each condition, are seen in Table XIII. 

1 See list of abbreviations, p. 245. 



270 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

TABLE XIII.^ — LINE SEEN AGAINST BACKGROUND OF NATURAL OBJECTS 
(furniture, ETC\). FEBRUARY 13, 1904. 





R. Eye. 


Both Eyes. 


L. Eye. 


OR 
OB 
OL 


2.66 R ± .21 
2.34 R -J- .11 
0.74 R i .09 


1.38 R ± .16 
1.26 Ri.l5 
0.42 R i .18 


1.30 R -1- .08 
1.40 R i .20 
0.08 R ± .10 


Difference between ) 
OL and OR f 

Difference bv other ' 
method (264 
tests) .1 


— 1.92 

— 0.97 


— 0.96 

— 1.11 


— 1.22 
-1.48 



6. Influence of method of orientation and exi^loita- 
tion. — In testing the influence of fixating a point situ- 
ated off to one side of a line, the apparent inclination of 
the line will differ according as the fixation-point is oppo- 
site the bottom or the top of the line ; for normally a line 
so viewed seems to curve concavely about the point of 
fixation, in case the latter is opposite the middle of the 
line. It is of interest, therefore, to determine whether a 
similar difference exists in case of the influence of a field 
of distinguishable objects situated to one side, the line 
itself being fixated. Such a field might conceivably influ- 
ence by attracting the eye unconsciously away from the 
line somewhat toward itself, or by repelling it to the 
opposite side; in which case the effects might really be 
identical with those of side-fixation, and we would expect 
a difference in the apparent inclination of the line, accord- 
ing as its upper end was attended to, with exploitation 
downward, or its bottom end with upward exploitation. 
I tested this difference, though with very few trials, in 
the case of two observers, and found no difference in re- 
sult. Moreover all the other observers were allowed to 

^ See list of abbreviations, p. 245. 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 271 

move the eye freely up and down the line in observing 
it, and yet their remarks in regard to its appearance show- 
no change in inclination as the eye wanders up and down, 
and the striking uniformity of results shows apparently 
that each field exerts an influence in one direction only, 
however the observer may have viewed the line. 

Not feeling satisfied with the sufficiency of these 
observations, however, I have recently made a renewed 
attempt to settle this point. As a preliminary, it was 
necessary to establish the relative effect when the line 
was fixated at one end or the other, or in the middle, 
without disturbing conditions. I am still somewhat puz- 
zled by the complexity of the results, and by the difficulty 
of recognizing exactly what conditions are present in each 
case. It is certain that a line, whether vertical or horizon- 
tal, can be fixated at either end, and with attentive exploi- 
tation either toward or away from the point of fixation; 
or again, without any feeling of an exploiting movement 
whether of attention or of eye, with either the point of 
fixation or the peripheral portion of the line emphasized 
in attention. Moreover the line cannot be examined with- 
out an accompanying awareness of the neighboring field 
on either side of it ; and the field on one side is usually 
more prominent in consciousness than that on the other 
side. I formulate the following principle tentatively as 
expressing what seems to me to occur, though I am far 
from certain that this is a complete analysis of the situa- 
tion : Whenever one. end of a lijie is fixated, the perijjhe- 
ral imrt of the line usually projects into the field on 
either side toward which attention is predomhiantly 
directed ; though if as is less often the case, in trying 
to determine the relative p)Osition of different points, 
the point of fixation is the more prominent in attention, 
or if attentive exploitation is directed toward instead 



272 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

of away from it, it is this which inclines toward the 
j^redominant field. This principle seems to hold of lines 
running in any direction, — vertical, horizontal, or in the 
third dimension. Thus, if one fixates the upper end of a 
line' and attends to the relative position of its peripheral 
portion, its lower end will deviate to the right if attention 
emphasizes the field to the right, and vice versa; but if 
the peripheral portion is relatively neglected, compared 
with the point of fixation, or if attentive exploitation is 
toward the latter, the point of fixation will deviate toward 
the side of which one is more clearly aware. Similarly, 
the same four separate cases will exist when fixation is at 
the bottom point, or at either end of a horizontal line. 
Table XIV, which confirms and amplifies the indications 
of Table II, shows for vertical lines the relative influence 
of these different conditions. The values given are the 
result of only two endeavors in each case to determine 
the extreme position of the line which can appear vertical 
under each of the conditions tested. They are probably 
too schematic to represent adequately the average of any 
long series of tests of this nature; but they closely ap- 
proximate the actual extreme values attainable at the time 
of the examinations recorded. They support and give 
definite measurement of the influences announced in the 
principle formulated above; and in addition they show the 
possibility of a complicated form of attention which I 
have designated a " twisted tension," more influential 
than any other kind, which seems to me to be of frequent 
occurrence. 

With fixation in the middle, or with free movement 
back and forth along the line, the complexity of results is 
still further increased. This may be easily understood, if 
one reflects that in this case exploitation may occur in 
either direction, or even in both together, and with pre- 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 



273 



dominant awareness of the field on either side of the line. 
In any case^ the neighboring field to one side or the other 
is usually predominant in its influence. This predomi- 
nance of one field is, so far as I can judge, always attended 
by and probably due to a predominant muscular tension 
to that side. The muscular tension may be set up, appar- 



TABLE XIV. — COMBINED INFLUENCE OF FIXATION AT EITHER END OF 
LINE, ATTENTIVE EXPLOITATION TOWARD OR AWAY FROM THE FIXA- 
TION POINT, AND PREDOMINANT AWARENESS OF ADJOINING FIELD ON 
THE ONE SIDE OR THE OTHER. MARCH 10, 11, 1906. OBSERVER NO. 1. 





Attention emphasizing, or attentive 
exploitation toward, the point of 
fixation. 


exploitation toward, the periph- 
eral portions of the line. 




Attentive Emphasis on 


Attentive Emphasis on 


Fixation B 
T 


Field to R. 

2.8 R 

0.8 R 


Field to L. 

0.8 R 
2.8 R 


Field to R. 

0.8 R 

2.8 R 


Field to L 

2.8 R 
0.8 R 




" Twisted Tension ; " i. e. attentive emphasis peripherally toward field on 
one side, and at fixation point toward field on opposite side. 


Fixation B 
" T 


Peripherally to right. 

0.3 R 
4.2 R 


Peripherally to left. 

4.2 R 

0.3 R 



Fixation B 
T 



Normal Values, without disturbing conditions, average of ten tests each. 



1.97 Ri. 17 
2.26 R ± .16 



ently, either in response to retinal stimulations, or as a 
result of central factors, " anticipatory images," or by 
deliberate effort, — and perhaps also in response to the 
restless working of some more peripherally situated phys- 
iological mechanism. When present, it may be recog- 
nized as present, or may be wholly lost in the feeling that 
the field on one side or the other is for the moment espe- 



274 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

cially clear. Such tensions or predominant awarenesses are 
continually occurring and changing spontaneously during 
the examination of a line ; and I find it easy to introduce 
them voluntarily. Their effectiveness is seen, not only in 
viewing these vertical and horizontal lines, but in the case 
of three-dimensional figures also. Consider, for example, 
one of the figures illustrating the so-called " reversible 
illusions of perspective." It seems to me that its changes 
follow this law : Whenever one of the points of an awr 
higuous 2^erspectwe figure is fixated, that point will pro- 
ject toward the observer either in case the p)eripherally 
observed parts of the figure are emphasized in attention 
with accomjKtnying divergent tensioiis of the eyes, or in 
case the fixated point is emphasized, whether directly or 
by attentive exploitation toward it, loith accompanying 
convergent tension. 

Thus a vertical (or horizontal or otherwise situated) line 
may seem to incline in either direction, whichever end 
is fixated. Yet there are certain prevailing tendencies. 
When there are no surrounding objects visible, as in case 
of a luminous line in the dark, the relative effect of fixat- 
ing at either end is apparently so easily variable that no 
fixed tendency can be asserted of it. But in case of ver- 
tical lines with visible surroundings, the line generally 
appears to incline more to the right when the bottom than 
when the top end is fixated. In case of horizontal lines, 
the end that is fixated usually seems to be the higher, 
though the opposite tendency is apparently of rather fre- 
quent occurrence. When the middle portion is fixated, the 
results may be the same as with fixation at either end, or 
may take a position anywhere between the two. These 
prevailing tendencies are seen in the measurements re- 
corded in Table XV. 

Having established the normal positions for fixation at 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 



275 



TABLE XV/ 



- INFLUENCE OF PORTION OF LINE FIXATED. 
MARCH, 1906. OBSERVER NO. 1. 



FEBRUARY, 





Influence Tjijical | Influence Exceptional 

\ 




Number 
of Series 


Number 
of Tests 


Position 


Varia- 
bility 


Number 
of Series 


Number 
of Tests 


Position 


Varia- 
bility 


Vertical lines : 
Fix. at bottom . . . 

" middle . . 

" top 

Top ''/y, bottom . . 


6 
6 
6 


75 

75 
71 


1.32 R 
1.44 R 
1.80 R 

+ 0.48 


+ .34 
.29 
.28 


4 
2 
4 


50 
20 
45 


2.57 R 
3.20 R 
2.22 R 
—0.35 


.32 


Horizontal Unas : 
Fix. at left 

" middle . . 

" right .... 
R. 7« left 


14 
27 
14 


136 
253 
140 


1.68 D 
2.43 D 
2.50 D 

+ 0.82 


.30 
.26 
.32 


4 

2 
4 


40 
10 
50 


2.76 D 
2.25 D 
2.02 D 

— 0.74 


.24 
.16 
.26 



either end, I again tried the effect of placing a field of 
many distinguishable objects on one side or the other. 
Several different fields were used : the wafers on a page 
of newspaper, previously described ; brightly colored let- 
ters and pictures; and two attractive small-figured wall- 
paper designs. So far as the records show, it made no 
difference which of these different fields was employed. 
Again, with over 150 tests on either side in case of verti- 
cal lines, and over 200 on either side in case of horizontals, 
the conclusion announced in the first paragraph of this 
section seemed at first sight justified : the influence on 
the inchnation of a line exerted by a field of objects situ- 
ated exclusively on one side of the line is the same, which- 
ever end of the line is fixated. Thus in case of vertical 
lines, in five series of tests (usually of ten tests each), with 
the field on the left the line seemed to incline farther to 
the right than with the field on the right, whether top, 
middle, or bottom was fixated. In case of horizontal lines, 

1 See list of abbreviations, p. 245. 



276 



STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 



the more frequent result is for the right end to appear 
iuchued toward the exposed field, whichever end is fixated. 
This result is somewhat the more certain when fixation is 
at the left end. In eight series of tests, with fixation at 
the left end the result was typical in five cases, and no 
influence was apparent in three cases ; with fixation at the 
right end, the typical result appeared in four cases, the 
opposite result in two cases, and no influence in two cases. 
It seems clear, then, that in any given series of tests a 



TABLE XVI. 1 — INFLUENCE OF FIELD OBJECTS ON EITHER SIDE OF THE 
LINE. FEBRUARY, MARCH, 1906. OBSERVER NO. 1. 





Type I. 


Type II. 




Fixation L. 


M. 


R. 


L. 


M. 


R. 


Horizontal Lines. 
Position : 

OU 

OD 

ODV^OU 

Variability 

OU 

OD 


+ 0.49 

— 0.25 

— 0.74 

.36 
.32 


+ 0.85 
+ 0.31 
— 0.54 

.23 
.16 


+ 0.20 

— 0.08 

— 0.30 

.33 

.20 


+ 0.16 
+ 0.28 
+ 0.12 

.30 

.22 


+ 0.25 
+ 0.47 
+ 0.22 

.37 

.25 


— 0.25 

+ 0.42 
+ 0.68 

.55 
.33 


No. of Series 

No. of Tests 


5 

90 


3 

50 


5 

100 


3 
61 


3 
61 


3 
51 




B. 


M. 


T. 




Vertical Lines. 
Position : 

OR 

OL 

OLV.OR 

Variability 

OR 

OL 


+ 0.18 
+ 0.26 
+ 0.08 

.23 
.24 


+ 0.41 

— 0.06 

— 0.48 

.24 
.23 


+ 0.63 
+ 0.15 

— 0.48 

.30 
.30 


This table shows, not 
the actual positions given 
to the line, but the differ- 
ence between the position 
without, and that with, a 
field of objects introduced 
on one side. 

The variabilities given 


No. of Series .... 
No. of Tests 


5 

90 


6 
112 


5 

90 


are ad 
tive. 


.ual, not 


compara- 



1 See list of abbreviations, p. 245. 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 277 

field of objects situated predominantly to one side of a line 
tends to exert the same type of influence on the line's 
apparent direction, whatever portion of the line is fixated. 
Closer examination, however, does reveal some significant 
differences. In another series the direction of influence 
may reverse ; and in any one series the influence is not 
equally strong for fixation at each of the two ends of the 
line. This is shown by displaying the results as in Table 
XVI. 

Here it is seen that in case of vertical lines the influ- 
ence of a field on the left as compared with one on the 
right is to cause the line to appear inclined farther to the 
right ; but this influence is less with fixation at the bot- 
tom than with fixation at the top.^ Similarly, in case of 
horizontal lines, the influence of a field below the line as 
compared with that of one above is predominantly to 
cause the right end of the Line to appear inclined more 
downward when fixation is at the left end, more upward 
with fixation at the right end. The noting of this fact 
has at last given me a clue as te the manner in which all 
these tangled and apparently inconsistent facts may be 
unified and explained. The following propositions pre- 
sent the conclusions which now appeal to me as probably 
indicated by the facts : — 

a. Fixation at either end of a line is naturally accom- 
panied by attention to the relative position of its peri- 
pheral portions, which then diverge toward the field on 
either side that is most prominent in attention (Table 
XIV.). 

h. The field to the right of vertical lines and below 
horizontal lines is most easily and naturally attended to, 

1 In the table it appears actually slightly reversed; but this is due to a 
very exceptional result in one series out of the five. If that series were not 
counted, it would still appear strongly lessened ( — 0.10), but not reversed. 



278 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

when surrounding objects are visible, but without partic- 
ular predominance of either side. Hence, wherever the 
fixation, the peripheral portion of the line will tend to 
project into the field to the right of the line, or into that 
below the line. In case of vertical lines, with fixation at 
the bottom, the line will most frequently appear to incline 
with its top farther toward the right than when fixation 
is at the top ; and when fixation is at the top, the line 
must be placed with its upper end farther to the right to 
appear vertical (Table XV). In case of horizontal lines, 
with fixation at the left, the line will appear inclined with 
its right end farther downward than with fixation at the 
right, and therefore in the latter case the right end must 
be placed farther down in order to appear horizontal 
(Table XV). 

c. The influence of visible objects predominantly on 
one side of the line reduces to the same uniform principle. 
Thus, with fixation at the bottom and objects on the left 
side, the vertical line is placed with its upper end farther 
to the right, hence seen when actually vertical as inclined 
farther to the left, than with fixation at the top ; and 
with fixation at the left end, with objects below, the line 
is placed with its right end farther up, hence seen when 
horizontal as if inclined farther down, than with fixation 
at the right end (Table XVI). The effects are of the 
same nature, though less in amount, as in case of delib- 
erate attention toward the field on one side of the line, 
affecting the peripheral portion of the line (Table XIV). 
They are very nearly the same in amount as the typical 
influences seen in Table XV. 

cZ. From the prevailing tendency shown in Table VI, 
therefore, it would appear that the majority of observers 
view the line most naturally with fixation or attention 
directed toward its middle portion, and attentive exploi- 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 279 

tation downward ; whence would occur the result that, 
with objects on the right, the lower end of the line would 
appear to diverge toward the right, and therefore, in 
order to appear vertical, the upper end would be placed 
farther to the right. With horizontal lines, in my own 
case, — I have not tested it with others, — the more usual 
tendency is, with objects below, to place the line with its 
right end farther upward, hence to see it when horizon- 
tal as inclined farther downward. This would indicate a 
prevailing tendency to exploit it toward the right. This 
tendency is modified, of course, when deliberate fixation 
at the right end is adopted, by the opposing tendency to 
exploit peripherally and hence toward the left ; while the 
two tendencies agree in case of fixation at the left end, 
or in the middle, and consequently there is slightly less 
variability in the latter cases. In case of vertical lines 
again, a similar conflict occurs between the tendencies to 
exploit downward and to exploit peripherally, when fixa- 
tion is at the bottom ; while the two agree when fixation 
is at the top, in which case there is again less variability. 
Even in the cases of conflict, the downward-rightward 
tendency for vertical lines and the rightward-downward 
for horizontal lines predominates over the peripheral 
tendency, and the latter then diminishes but does not 
usually overbalance the effect of the former. The conflict 
always introduces a greater variability. The peripheral 
tendency more easily overbalances the other tendency, 
when in conflict with it, in case of horizontal lines than 
in case of verticals, doubtless because in the latter case 
the rightward tendency is but slightly more natural and 
predominant than that in the opposite direction. All of 
these deductions are supported by the facts shown in 
Table XYI, 

e. When the number of surrounding objects visible 



280 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

about a line diminishes, and there is no predominance in 
relative importance of the field on one side of the line over 
that on the other, there is a strong tendency for vertical 
lines to appear inclined more toward the left, and for hori- 
zontal lines more upward (Tables IV, X, XI). In gen- 
eral, the larger the number of objects, the more truly 
vertical or horizontal is the line placed. One striking dif- 
ference, however, appears to exist in this respect between 
vertical and horizontal lines. With many objects about, 
the naturally stronger influence of the field on the right 
side of vertical lines is opposed and diminished, but not 
overcome, by the simultaneous influence of the field on 
the left. As the number of visible objects grows less, the 
natural predominance of the field on the right increases, 
and since it is accompanied by a natural exploitation of 
the line downward, the lower end diverges toward the 
right, and to appear vertical the upper end must be shifted 
more and more toward the right. When no surrounding 
objects can be seen at all, as in the case of the luminous 
line, the rightward tension still strongly persists. 

These are the tendencies that appear when the right 
eye alone is used. For the left eye, a greater complication 
seems to exist. When many objects are present, the right- 
ward tendency still predominates ; but there occurs with 
it, apparently, a tension toward the left, which increases 
as the objects decrease in number or in illumination, and 
finally leads to an apparent inclination of the line with its 
upper end toward the right, the direction of exploitation 
being downward, as for the right eye (Table IV). It is 
possible that the tendencies for either eye of left-handed 
people is the same as those here noted as applying to the 
left eye (Table X, No. 24). 

In the case of horizontal lines, there is no difference 
between left and right eye (Table XI), but there is for 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 281 

either of them a conflict of sidewise tensions, as in the 
case of the left eye with vertical lines. With many objects 
visible, the predominant tension is downward (as shown 
in paragraph h, above). But with a decreasing number 
of objects this is supplanted by an upward tension, which, 
joined with a rightward direction of exploitation, causes 
the right end of the line to appear inclined farther upward, 
and hence to be placed, in order to appear horizontal, far- 
ther downward (Table XI). 

/. Though these are the prevailing tendencies, yet it is 
inevitable that many exceptions should occur. It is most 
natural, when fixating a given portion of a line, to exploit 
outwardly from it and thus attend prominently to the 
peripheral portions of the line. But the reverse of this 
may easily occur, in which case, not the peripheral portion, 
but the point of fixation, will diverge toward the field on 
the side of the line which obtains most vigorous attention. 
Sometimes in conflict with this tendency is another natu- 
ral tendency to exploit vertical lines, in attention at least, 
downward, and horizontal lines toward the right ; but this, 
too, is frequently reversed. Again, it is natural to be most 
clearly aware of the field to the right of vertical lines 
and below horizontal lines, when little difference exists in 
the relative prominence of the fields on either side; or to 
attend to the more prominent of two fields which differ 
widely. But again it is exceedingly easy to turn attention 
to the other field. Prevailing tendencies exist, but their 
existence and nature can be established only by numerous 
observations, because during the examination of a line 
they are continually shifting and changing, and thus pro- 
ducing opposing results. 

Moreover, since all these directions of exploitation, 
predominant attentions to one side or the other, and the 
like are almost inevitably interpreted in clear conscious- 



282 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

ness as a particular inclination of the line itself, it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to make a reliable introspective analysis 
of the conditions actually present. My own analyses are 
basedj partly on introspection, rendered more reliable by 
long observation of facts of this sort, though still far from 
unambiguous ; and partly on the results of actual measure- 
ments, as given in the tables, but with so many conflict- 
ing indications that I cannot be entirely sure of the vahd- 
ity of my deductions. The hypotheses developed above 
to account for the results are the only ones which at 
present seem to unify the entire series of observations ; 
but in view of the enormous complexity of the problem, 
it is not impossible that further research may necessitate 
a modification of some of them. 

C. SUGGESTIONS TOWARD THEORY OF EXPLANATION 

Among the main facts brought out by this research 
are, in the first place, the existence of certain predominant 
tendencies of exploitation, whether of attention only or of 
actual movement ; and of a tendency to be most clearly 
aware of portions of the field of view lying in certain 
particular directions from the momentary point of fixa- 
tion. These tendencies are probably due, some of them 
to natural physical conditions, some of them to acquired 
habits. When objects are present, I assume that it re- 
quires somewhat less efliort to execute movements down- 
ward among them than in the upw^ard direction, and that 
this accounts for the downward tendencies of exploitation, 
when present. When externally stimulating objects are 
absent, the eyes tend to assume the position of rest, in 
which they are rolled upward and outward. This would 
probably account for the upward tendency seen in the 
case of horizontal fines when few objects are visible, and in 
part also for the rightward tendency of the right eye, and 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 283 

the leftward tendency of the left eye, in the relative absence 
of visible objects. A further reason for the latter differ- 
ence may possibly consist in the greater emphasis felt 
rightward when the right eye alone is used, and leftward 
in case of the left eye; and in the greater extent and 
prominence of the field to the right in case of the right 
eye, and to the left in case of the left eye. When nume- 
rous surrounding objects are present, the rightward ten- 
dency is very likely due to our habits in reading and 
writing, which in turn are based on our prevailing right- 
handedness. 

A second result of the research is the establishment of 
the fact that when distinguishable objects are present pre- 
dominantly on one side of a line, they tend to cause those 
portions of the line to apparently deviate toward them- 
selves, which, whether fixated or examined peripherally, 
receive most emphasis in attention. This fact is more 
difficult to explain. A number of possibilities suggest 
themselves, and their full elaboration would require a 
long discussion. I will briefly sketch the more important 
among those that have occurred to me. 

1. The results might be due largely to the operation 
of central factors, — to the manner of apperception or in- 
terpretation of the visual impressions. The expectation 
of results of a certain type, a half -formed theory that they 
ought to be explainable in a certain manner, could cer- 
tainly influence the actual appearances. That this has not 
been operative in this case is indicated by the fact that 
the results have always been varied and confusing, that 
my anticipations have been over and again contradicted 
by the facts as they developed, and that not until the very 
day of writing this paragraph have I been able to work 
out to a satisfactory conclusion the unifying principles 
that now appeal to me. Or some kind of suggestive or 



284 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

attractive influence exerted by the neighboring objects 
might be supposed to influence the interpretation of the 
line's position ; but I can think of nothing plausible of 
this nature. To be sure, the visual impressions have to 
be interpreted before they can mean anything at all. But 
they can receive interpretation only on the basis of pre- 
vious experience, and I think we are justified in believing 
that all spatial interpretations are derived from definite 
experiences of movement, and that they can be made only 
when there are present either actual movements or mus- 
cular tensions that represent them. Even an anticipation 
or bias or suggestion can be effective only in case it intro- 
duces the appropriate muscular reaction as a basis for the 
spatial qualities that are perceived. 

2. The results might possibly be identical with those 
of fixation in the field off to one side of the line. This 
explanation would naturally occur to one familiar with the 
facts that such side-fixation affects the apparent inclina- 
tion of a line, that the eye is constantly making slight 
undetected movements about its point of fixation, and 
that peripherally seen objects tend to make the eye turn 
toward themselves. It would seem, then, that the presence 
of such objects might easily cause a slight unconscious 
deviation of the eye-direction from the line. To be sure, 
the results of side-fixation themselves need explanation, 
and I propose to discuss that matter at another time. It is 
sufficient now to point out that this is not the influence 
at work here (at least, not the sole influence), for the fol- 
lowing reasons : — 

a. The results agree with those of side-fixation in only 
a certain proportion of the cases. Thus, with objects on 
the right, fixation at the upper end and exploiting atten- 
tion downward, the lower end of the line apparently devi- 
ates toward the right, as it naturally would in case the 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 285 

actual point of fixation unconsciously diverged somewhat 
into the field to the right of the upper end. But with fix- 
ation at the lower end and exploiting attention still down- 
ward, the line's apparent inclination remains as before, 
although the opposite inclination would result if it were 
due to a deviation of the point of fixation to the right of 
the bottom of the line. If the results were due to side- 
fixation, they should uniformly differ according as fixa- 
tion is at the one end or the other of the line ; they 
actually differ only in case attentive exploitation is in 
each case peripheral, and not in case it is, as frequently 
happens, uniformly downward or rightward, whatever the 
point of fixation. 

h. Actual examination of the eye during observation 
of a line shows that its direction of regard may be toward 
either side of the line, independently of the latter' s ap- 
parent inclination. I have established this in two ways. 
First, with the head firmly fixed in a head-rest, I examined 
the eye through a microscope and watched its movements. 
While I could not thus determine its actual fixation-point 
with reference to the line, yet I observed that the changes 
in apparent inclination of the line, and also changes in 
voluntary attention toward the field on the right or on 
the left of the fixation-point, were entirely independent 
of the actual changes in position of the eye. In the sec- 
ond place, I obtained a strong after-image of a bright 
vertical and horizontal cross, and projected this onto the 
base of the line. By its position with reference to the 
line, I could determine accurately whether fixation was 
actually on it, or slightly to the right or the left ; and in 
whichever position it was, the line might appear inclined 
in either direction, or attention might be directed volun- 
tarily predominantly to the field on either side. The pre- 
vailing tendency, in ordinary fixation, was for the line to 



286 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

appear inclined with its peripheral part deviating toward 
the side on which deviation of the eye's direction occurred; 
and in case of attention to one side, for the eye to deviate 
toward that side. But the opposite conditions occur with 
sufficient frequency to prove that the line's apparent di- 
rection is entirely independent of the influence of side- 
fixation. 

3. The only view that appeals to me as at all adequate 
to account for the facts is that the variations in the line's 
apparent direction are due to the presence of particular 
muscular tensions. I believe this for several reasons. In 
the first place, I can see no other way to clearly account 
for the existence and details of the manner in which we 
perceive the spatial characteristics of objects. Then fur- 
ther, such tensions do exist and can be voluntarily intro- 
duced, and when so introduced they do affect the appar- 
ent inclination of lines. Again, after long study over 
this problem, I have often seemed to be able to detect 
their presence and nature, and the manner in which they 
influence the line's direction, when they were not volun- 
tarily sought ; but I cannot do this always, nor in every 
case reliably. And finally, it seems to me that these ten- 
sions must unavoidably occur, and that when present they 
furnish the same type of feeling as is derived from actual 
movements along a line with the inclination which the 
line under examination seems to possess. 

Visible objects tend to cause the eye to turn toward 
them. If the eye does not actually turn, nevertheless a 
corresponding tension is introduced, balanced by an oppos- 
ing tension which prevents movement. Neither of these 
tensions is ordinarily noticed as such, but mingled with 
the tensions aroused by the line itself, they contribute to 
its spatial interpretation. A line's direction is primarily 
judged by the particular feelings of movement that arise 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 287 

as the eye glances along it, apperceived by the aid of 
numberless previous experiences of eye movement corre- 
lated with hand movement. If the eye does not glance 
along the line, but rests on some point within it, and at- 
tention alone exploits it, a set of tensions is aroused that 
takes the place of the actual movement and receives the 
same interpretation. I assume that when a line's direction 
is wrongly judged, because of the presence of other ob- 
jects, the combined tensions from line and from objects 
furnish the same total feeling as would be derived from 
the examination of a line having the actual inclination 
which the line in question appears to have. It is a matter 
of identical sensory elements derived from muscular ac- 
tivities receiving the same interpretation. In my previous 
paper I have discussed this at somewhat greater length, 
though still inadequately ; and I have now worked out 
in much greater detail the explanation of exactly what 
occurs. But the full explanation involves so many intri- 
cacies that I must postpone its further elaboration. Just 
now I must content myself with the statement that I know 
that muscular tensions of this nature exist and modify the 
apparent direction of lines ; and with expressing my be- 
lief that they furnish the ultimate explanation for all of 
the spatial facts recorded in this paper. 

The more I study this problem the more am I con- 
vinced that muscular tensions furnish all the material 
that is worked up into the spatial details of our percep- 
tions. But we never normally detect them as muscular 
tensions. In the dark, or with closed eyes, they are prob- 
ably present, constantly surging and changing because 
of varying and untraceable inner physiological stimuli, 
but they pass undetected when there is no sensory mate- 
rial to which they can be applied. With a single object, 
such as a line, in view, they tend to apply themselves 



288 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

spatially to it, unless its position is such as to make this 
impossible because of too great divergence. And still 
they are not felt as tensions, but as space qualities of 
objects, unless they are unusually intense, or unless prac- 
tice enables one to detect them more readily. 

Still a third and final important result of this research 
IS the clear proof of the fact that there is less variability 
in the perception of a line's direction, and in other spatial 
judgments, when a multitude of objects is Visible peri- 
pherally. The reason for this seems evident. Apparently 
we can execute with care and delicacy no movements 
unless the muscles concerned maintain within themselves 
a degree of constant tension or tone, balanced and con- 
trolled by a corresponding tone in opposing muscles. 
This muscular tone is not steady, but ever changing, and 
the muscle is therefore in constant slight oscillation. The 
more energetic and well we are, the more of energy is 
devoted to maintaining these tensions, and the smaller are 
the consequent oscillations or tremblings, and the greater 
our control in the execution of desired movements. In 
case of the eyes, their tone is apparently maintained 
largely by the stimulation of outside objects, though it is 
subject also to constantly changing inner stimuli or cen- 
tral innervations. Its variations are many and confused, 
and we are unable to grasp them in their nature and sig- 
nificance, unless there are light sensations which can be 
fused with them into a spatial perception of objects. 
Experience has given us no data whereby the bare ten- 
sions can call up by association the appropriate elements 
of hand and body experience, and thus get apperceived 
as meaning either movement, position, or external space. 
This is largely because, in the absence of external stimuli 
and their corresponding tensions, the constantly varying 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 289 

tensions due to inner causes bear so large a proportion 
to the slight impressions aroused by the eye's own posi- 
tion and movements that they completely overshadow the 
latter, and the total complex can have no definite spatial 
meaning. For that reason we do not feel the movements 
of the eyes with any delicacy when the eyes are closed. 
We cannot predict with any accuracy on what object the 
gaze will immediately fall on opening the eyes. Most 
persons are not even aware that the eyes tend to roll up- 
ward and outward when they are closed and relaxed. If 
one look at an intermittent single light in the dark, such 
as that of a flashing lighthouse, and try to maintain the 
same direction of gaze while it is gone, on its reappear- 
ance one will find himself looking somewhere else. 

With very little of external stimulation present, the 
inner tensions still make up so large a proportion of the 
total tensions, that their changing and unreliable nature 
characterizes such spatial interpretations as are made. 
Consider attentively, for example, a meagre constant 
stimulus, such as that of the luminous line used in some 
of these experiments, with no other objects visible. The 
line's position cannot be accurately judged. It seems to 
ceaselessly shift and waver, drift about, change in its dis- 
tance, its direction from the observer, and its own incli- 
nation, under the influence of tensions which are kept in 
restless variation by the inner stimuli. The changing 
tensions are applied to the spatial interpretation of the 
only object that is visible. Introduce other visible details, 
with their corresponding definite tensions, but leave them 
still relatively insufficient, as when we stand in lofty 
places with few things visible immediately around us, and 
confusion or dizziness is apt to occur. Or let the visible 
details fail to arouse definite tensions because they are 
kept too rapidly shifting, as when, in vertigo from turn- 



290 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

ing around, the eyes keep moving unconsciously quickly 
in one direction and more slowly in the other, so that the 
objects, seen vaguely only during the slower movements, 
seem to glide away constantly in one direction ; again 
dizziness and confusion result, with no very definite spa- 
tial feeling except that of the movement of the objects. 
Or let the confusion be due to the first heavy moments 
of waking from a deep and insufficient sleep, or to the 
diminished power of coordination brought about by alco- 
hol or drugs ; again, the eye tensions, with their result- 
ing control of movement and perception, are lacking. 
Whenever tensions definitely corresponding to the spa- 
tial characteristics of external objects bear a relatively 
small proportion to the tensions of inner origin, the 
perception of those objects is unreliable and wavering. 
Moreover, the proper tone in the other muscles of the 
body, and thus their adequate control, seems to depend 
largely on the presence of abundant and well-coordinated 
tensions in the eye muscles aroused by external stimula- 
tion ; for the above enumerated conditions wherein these 
latter are relatively lacking are very apt to be accom- 
panied by a general trembling and tottering and stum- 
bling about. Under similar conditions mental steadiness, 
clearness, and control diminish also. A failure to grasp 
clearly the nature of one's surroundings, to apperceive 
definitely the spatial relations of things, leads to mental 
confusion. A badly blurred page of print, the eye's un- 
controlled movements in vertigo, a sudden rise from a 
stooping position causing a disturbance of the equilibrium 
of circulation, a series of events too complicated and rapid 
to make their clear comprehension possible, — in all these 
cases the muscular tensions of the eyes are too confused 
to gain clear interpretation, and the mental confusion 
that results, for a moment at least, is not merely in regard 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 291 

to the objects themselves, but is one that affects other 
conscious processes as well. During a prolonged sitting 
in the dim light of a spiritist seance, it is not merely the 
sitter's desire and expectation that account for the fre- 
quent lack of good observation and sound judgment, nor 
his usual lack of training in accurate observation and the 
unfavorable conditions for it that exist ; the steady mus- 
cular tone given by the presence of external objects is 
wanting also, with shifting inner tensions in its place, 
and this condition doubtless contributes to the increased 
suggestibility and diminished mental control. Every one 
who has taken an overdose of alcohol or of some other 
drugs knows that the whirling inner processes and the 
bodily disturbances can be controlled best if the eyes are 
kept open. 

It requires, then, the numberless stimuli of our ordi- 
nary conditions of vision, producing a mass of varied but 
well-ordered and clearly related muscular tensions, to 
secure accurate and uniform observation of things in 
their spatial relations, and usually also to make a well- 
regulated control of muscular and mental activity pos- 
sible. That this is true of perception of the direction of 
lines is clearly shown in the experiments of this research 
by the lessened variability and greater accuracy of the 
results, whenever many surrounding visible objects were 
present. 

SUMMARY 

The number of conditions affecting the apparent direc- 
tion of a line is very large, the conditions are constantly 
and unconsciously varying in the manner in which they 
mingle together, and the complex thus formed cannot, in 
any given series of tests, be thoroughly and satisfactorily 
analyzed. An attempt to determine the influence of any 
one condition cannot, therefore, be unaccompanied by ap- 



292 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

parently varying and conflicting results, especially if the 
influence under consideration be a slight one. As a result 
of long and varied experimentation , however, the follow- 
ing conclusions seem justified : — 

1. Exploitation of a line by actual movement of the eye 
may occur in either direction ; and in the absence of 
actual movement, attentive exploitation may be directed 
either toward or away from the point of fixation. 

2. During examination of a line, there is always some 
awareness also of the field surrounding it; and this aware- 
ness is much more apt to be predominantly of the field to 
one side of the line than of both fields equally. 

3. By practice one can acquire a certain degree of 
voluntary control of the direction of exploitation and of 
side-awareness ; and then it can be seen that always that 
portion of a line, whether it be fixated directly or exam- 
ined peripherally, toward which attentive exploitation is 
directed, appears to be displaced toward the side field 
which receives most emphasis in attention. 

4. Though voluntarily either direction of exploitation 
and of side-awareness may be secured, and though spon- 
taneously these are frequently changing, yet certain pre- 
vailing tendencies exist. These are as follows : — 

A. In case of vertical lines : — 

a. For the right eye, attentive exploitation occurs 
most easily and normally downward ^ ; though a 
second strong tendency, conflicting with that just 
mentioned in case fixation is at the lower end of 
the line, is for attention to exploit toward the 
peripherally seen portions of the line. 

^ This tendency is asserted only of the conditions under which these 
experiments were made. Certain facts of aesthetic appreciation seem to 
involve a prevailing tendency toward upward exploitation. The tendency 
probably differs, therefore, under different conditions whose exact nature 
cannot yet be determined. 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 293 

Side-awareness is directed most frequently and 
naturally toward the field on the right of the 
line. 
h. For the left eye, attentive exploitation has the 
same tendencies as for the right eye. 

Side-awareness is directed predominantly to- 
ward the field on the right when there are visi- 
ble objects within it ; but toward the field on the 
left in the absence of visible objects. 
B. In case of horizontal lines : — 

For either eye, attentive exploitation is directed 
most naturally toward the right ; though in sec- 
ond degree a strong tendency, conflicting there- 
with in case fixation is at the right end, exists 
to exploit toward the peripheral portions of the 
line. 

Side-awareness is directed predominantly to- 
ward the field below, when objects are present ; 
but toward the field above, in the absence of 
objects. 
5. These prevailing tendencies produce different results 
(a) when surrounding objects are visible, situated pre- 
dominantly to one side of the line ; (6) when surrounding 
objects are visible, with neither side predominant over 
the other ; and (c) when there are no surrounding objects 
visible. The effect of objects predominantly to one side 
is to cause the end of the line toward which attention or 
exploitation is directed to be displaced apparently toward 
the predominant field. In case of vertical lines this will 
usually be the lower end of the line ; though on account 
of the conflict in tendency when fixation is at the lower 
end, this effect in such case will be diminished, although 
rarely actually reversed. In case of horizontal lines, it 
will usually be the peripheral end that is displaced ; 



294 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

though on account of the rightward tendency, this will 
occur more often when fixation is at the left end than 
when it is at the right. A single object visible in the side 
field, such as a single bright spot in an otherwise blank 
field, will produce these results to some degree. The in- 
fluence will be larger the more prominent the object, the 
more strongly it attracts attention, the more numerous 
the objects visible predominantly in one direction, or the 
more closely they approach to the line. 

6. When many objects are present, clearly visible and 
predominant on neither side of the line, whether or not 
their presence is consciously noted, their effect is the pro- 
duction (1) of greater accuracy and (2) of greater uni- 
formity in estimating the line's direction. The influences 
of the separate fields nearly balance one another ; and yet 
for vertical lines the influence of the field to the right, 
and for horizontal fines that of the field below, is the 
stronger. 

7. In proportion as surrounding objects diminish in 
nuitiber, or as their prominence diminishes either because 
of their own nature or of lessened illumination, the follow- 
ing tendencies increase, sometimes in agreement, some- 
times in conflict, with those noted above : — 

A. In case of vertical lines : — 

a. For the right eye, the down ward-right ward ten- 
dency causes the line to appear with its upper 
end displaced more toward the left. 

6. For the left eye, the downward-leftward ten- 
dency causes the line to appear with its upper 
end displaced more toward the right. 

B. In case of horizontal lines: — 

For either eye, the rightward-upward tendency 
causes the line to appear with its right end dis- 
placed more upward. 



VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION 295 

C. At the same time, the variabiHty of all estimates of 
the line's direction is very greatly increased. 

8. Similar tendencies exist for the perception of direc- 
tions in the third dimension. These do not come within 
the scope of this paper, but the following principle, ap- 
plicable to figures of ^^ reversible perspective," seems to 
follow from the tendencies here noted, and to be supported 
by observation: Whenever one of the points of an am- 
biguous perspective figure is fixated, that point will pro- 
ject toward the observer either in case the peripherally 
observed parts of the figure are emphasized in attention, 
whether directly or by attentive exploitation away from 
the point of fixation ( often simultaneously in all direc- 
tions), with accompanying divergent tensions of the eyes ; 
or in case the fixated point is emphasized, whether directly 
or by attentive exploitation toward it (often from all 
difPerent directions simultaneously), with accompanying 
convergetit tensions. The opposite effects will be pro- 
duced, of course, when the tensions in each case are of 
the opposite nature. 

9. The facts here summarized find their explanation, in 
all probability, so far as they have to do with the presence 
of surrounding visible objects, in the influence of the 
latter on eye-movements or on muscular tensions represen- 
tative of them, whose sensory correlates, in combination 
with other sensory and apperceptive material connected 
with them into definite complexes, constitute the spatial 
interpretation of objects. 

10. Numerous other influences besides the prevailing 
tendencies of exploitation and of side-awareness and the 
influence of distinguishable objects, determine the appar- 
ent directions of lines. They have been discussed briefly 
by me elsewhere, and will probably receive more extended 
discussion hereafter. 



BEGINNING A LANGUAGE; A CONTRIBUTION 
TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 

Edgar James Swift 

Previous investigations in the psychology of learning 
have dealt with feats of muscular skill or with activities 
in which the physical was at least as prominent as the 
mental. The purpose of this investigation is to bring 
the work closer to the schools, to find out how far the 
principles already established apply to school studies, and 
to get the curve of learning for one type of school sub- 
jects. 

The nature of the investigation and method of jpro- 
cedure, — A language was chosen because of the compara- 
tive accuracy with which the rate of progress could be 
measured. In selecting the particular language it was im- 
portant to find one in which the subject's previous studies 
would be of least assistance. The Romance languages were, 
of course, excluded on account of their similarity to Latin. 
The choice finally fell upon Russian because, while meet- 
ing the other requirements of an investigation, there are 
two fairly good beginner's books. 

The investigation was begun March 30, 1905, and 
ended June 14. The experiment consisted of thirty 
minutes' study immediately followed by a fifteen minutes' 
test of reading ability. The daily preliminary study of 
thirty minutes was carried on in a perfectly natural way, 
the time being divided between the vocabulary of the 
lesson to be read in the following test, conjugations, de- 



298 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

clensions, and practice in reading review exercises, as the 
needs of the day suggested. 

In the writer's previous investigations in the psycho- 
logy of learning the subjects exerted themselves to their 
utmost to make a record, but in this experiment, though 
every moment was utilized, there was no attempt to 
" spurt." The work in both the study and the test was 
done without strain, and for that reason the result is more 
nearly comparable with that of the school. 

The curve is based on the number of words read during 
the daily fifteen minutes' test. 

Certain rules of procedure were necessary, and the fol- 
lowing were decided upon at the beginning, and strictly 
adhered to throughout the investigation. 

1. Proper names were not included in the count. 

2. When the same word was immediately repeated so 
that the knowledge was directly carried from one to the 
other the word was counted only once. 

3. When an intelligible meaning could not be found 
for a sentence the words were not counted. 

4. If, at the close of the test, a sentence was left un- 
finished, only those words were counted whose significance 
was clear in connection with the meaning of the sentence 
to that point. 

5. During the test the vocabulary of the lesson was 
covered with paper and not referred to until the attempt 
had been made to find the word in the general vocabulary 
at the end of the book, and also in the vocabulary of the 
reader. If the word was not found in either of these 
places it was then sought in the vocabulary of the exer- 
cises for the day. 

The work of the investigation was the first thing under- 
taken in the morning. The subject (the writer) after 
reaching his office spent fifteen minutes looking over the 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 299 

morning paper so as to " cool off " mentally after the half 
hour's walk from his home. He was very careful to main- 
tain the same routine of daily life throughout the inves- 
tigation so as not to complicate conditions. Immediately 
after the test was finished the work was thought over and 
any points that bore upon the investigation were noted. 
The particular lesson and sentences entering into the test 
of the day were also recorded in order that their ease or 
difficulty might later be considered in interpreting the 
curve. 

The books used were Mott's Elementary Eussian Gram- 
mar and Werkhaupt and Roller's Russian Reader. The 
exercise sentences of the grammar were taken in order 
first, and when they were completed the reader was begun. 
There was no skipping, except that when a sentence was 
not finished in the test of one day the test of the follow- 
ing day commenced with the next sentence. The grammar 
work kept pace with the exercises to be read. As the ex- 
ercise sentences were not numerous enough to call for 
more than one or two days on a single lesson, the forms 
could not always be thoroughly committed to memory. 
This was particularly true of the verbs. The writer sus- 
pects, however, that this is not very different from the 
condition of the average schoolboy when he goes to his 
recitation. 

The test was made daily, with the exception of Sundays, 
and the condition of the subject was always carefully 
noted. 

The subject had never before looked into a Russian 
book and knew absolutely nothing about the language. 
As a preliminary preparation for the investigation two 
hours were spent in studying the alphabet. This time was 
distributed over four days, one half hour on each of 
these days being given to it. At the end of these four 



300 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

days the iuvestigation took the form that has been de- 
scribed, one half hour of study followed by fifteen minutes 
of test. Aside from the two hours of study of the alpha- 
bet, the daily half hour of study was all the time that was 
ever given to the language, excepting, of course, the fifteen 
minutes' test, until after the completion of the investi- 
gation. Only twice was help obtained, and then only in 
getting the meaning of two words whose irregularity pre- 
vented the learner from finding them in the vocabulary, 
and which were causing confusion by their frequent oc- 
currence. 

The foUowmg curve was traced from the number of 
words translated each day during the fifteen minutes' test. 
The days are indicated on the horizontal base line, and 
the number of w^ords read on successive days appears on 
the perpendicular fine at the left. 

Description of the curve and discussion of its 
form, — The high record of the first day indicates a cer- 
tain control of letters, and marks the rise from zero know- 
ledge. The lesson for this day consisted merely of w^ords 
in the nominative case, wdiich were found without delay, 
and tw^o or three sentences so short and easy that the 
translation required no time w^ien once the meaning of 
the words was known. 

On the second day noun cases entered into the work, 
and for this reason the words w ere not so readily found. 
A few^ of the real difficulties of the language for which 
knowledge of symbols was inadequate w^ere now for the 
first time encountered, and so the score dropped. 

It will be seen from the curve that six days were 
needed to equal the record of the first day, and even then 
this level was not held. Indeed, even on the forty-sixth 
day, as the curve show^s, the score dropped to twenty-two 
words, while on the thirty-fourth day only ten words were 



302 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

read. The reason for this low record appears from the 
notes for that day : " New words and obscure expressions 
prevented progress." 

In interpreting the significance of the great variations 
in the curve, the sudden rises followed by an equally sud- 
den drop, it must be remembered that the subject was 
handling a tool about which he knew very little. If the 
declension of the words in the exercises was regular, the 
work was likely to go smoothly, and the resulting score 
would be high. But if a case-form so irregular as not to 
be readily recognized appeared, the delay might be so 
great as to markedly reduce the score for that day. The 
learner's knowledge, however, would not be fairly repre- 
sented by the day's record. This shows his deficiency 
rather than his power. Ordinarily, even at that stage of 
progress, he would do better, as the subsequent, and in 
many cases also the previous score shows. But as yet he 
cannot be depended upon in an emergency. His know- 
ledge is still limited in quantity and superficial in quality. 
The subject himself was conscious of this, and it was not 
until about the fifty-third day that he began to feel a 
little confidence in his knowledge. The notes for that 
day say, among other things, " the difficulties seem to be 
settling somewhat, but words are still hard to remember." 

The phenomenal rise on the sixteenth and nineteenth 
days seems to have been due, in part, to easier translation 
material. The sentences for those days were respectively 
illustrative of the interrogative and negative forms of 
regular verbs and of demonstrative pronouns. The time 
for advance had probably come, but the rise was too great 
to be ascribed solely to the learner's progress. Thirty-four 
days of study were needed before that height was reached 
again, and to the end of the investigation it was not per- 
manently held. All of these noticeably high records that 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 303 

are not made again for some days indicate that the learner 
has temporarily overshot his permanent power, and, as 
will be shown later, time is needed to perfect the auto- 
matization. The same fact was observed in the investiga- 
tion of ball-tossing and of typewriting. 

New words, not given in the vocabulary, and obscure 
expressions, caused the exceptionally low record of the 
thirty-fourth day. 

The rate of measurable progress at the beginning was 
much slower than in learning typewriting.^ This is seen 
in the length of time that passed before a much higher 
level than that reached during the first few days was per- 
manently gained. The ascent is not so sudden nor so 
continuous as in typewriting, and for that reason the 
curve is more nearly of the concave type. The reason 
for this is that in typewriting all the symbols were par- 
tially learned at the start, and the remainder of the time 
was given to automatizing this knowledge. In Russian, 
however, each day added new words and new gram- 
matical forms. Then, too, since the test exercises for a 
given day dealt especially with the subject-matter of the 
lesson, what had been learned in the past did not count 
greatly toward the translation. The grammar work, with 
its test sentences, was finished, and the reader begun, on 
the forty-third day, and from that time the rise was less 
interrupted. 

The general form of the curve will be more clearly 
seen in the smoothed curve marked by the heavy line.^ 

^ Cf. curve for the acquisition of skill in typewriting, Psychological 
Bulletin, vol. i, 1904, p. 297. 

2 The method used in smoothing was to average the scores for the first 
three days, then those for the second, third, and fourth days, next those for 
the third, fourth, and fifth days, etc., to the end. Naturally smoothed values 
could not be given for the first and last days. Consequently these days are 
not represented in the smoothed curve. 



304 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

Disc2issio7i of the results in the light of introspec- 
tive notes. — It will be seen from the curve that there 
are three periods of manifest advance, and four " plateaus/' 
the last plateau coming at the end of the investigation. 
Since plateaus seem to indicate that the learner is making 
no progress, their real significance is a matter of consid- 
erable interest. Bryan and Harter interpreted them to 
mean "that the lower-order habits are approaching their 
maximum development, but are not yet sufficiently auto- 
matic to leave the attention free to attack the higher-order 
habits.'' ^ 

This investigation sustains the view to which the writer 
has been led by former studies, that there is no such 
separation of " lower " and " higher-order " habits. In this 
investigation, as in the experiments on ball-tossing^ and 
typewriting,^ "higher-order" habits made their appear- 
ance early in the work. At first they were fugitive and 
not easily detected, but very soon one or two became 
sufficiently permanent to be clearly observed. It was 
noticeable, however, that extreme sensitiveness to condi- 
tions marked even this latter stage. A slight fatigue, or 
any mental disturbance whatever, drove them away and 
the subject at once sank to the level of "lower-order" 
habits. It would seem from this investigation, as well as 
from those previously made by the writer, that the dif- 
ference between earlier and later stages of the learning 
process does not consist in the absence, in the former, of 
" higher-order " habits acquired only after those of the 
" lower order " have become automatic, but rather in 
the predominance during the earlier stages of "lower- 
order" habits and the gradual self-assertion of those of 

1 Psychological Review, vi, 1899, p. 357. 

2 American Journal of Psychology, xiv, 1903, p. 201. 
8 Psychological Bulletin, i, 1904, p. 295. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 305 

a " higher order." Both kinds of habits were in process 
of formation almost from the beginning, and, as the in- 
vestigation ended before the subject had acquired any 
great proficiency in the work, both were conspicuous 
to the close. Introspection made it clear, however, that 
very early in the work, perhaps on the second or third 
day, a few common words of two, and possibly, in a few 
instances, of three letters were recognized at sight, while 
all others had to be slowly pronounced before they could 
be recognized, and that, too, regardless of the number 
of times they had already been seen. As the ability to 
recognize words at sight is a "higher-order" habit, at 
least when compared wdth the need for slow and labored 
pronunciation, it will be interesting to trace its growth. 
On the sixth day the subject wrote in his notes, "with 
the exception of common words of two and, in a very 
few instances, three letters, no word, however many times 
it may have appeared, is recognized until orally or men- 
tally pronounced." Again, the notes for the next day 
tell us that " in two or three instances words previously 
requiring pronouncing were recognized at sight." By the 
ninth day this power had increased so that " two or three 
reasonably long words were recognized at sight." Among 
them were the verb meaning "to speak," and the noun 
for " boy." The following day this list was increased 
by the words signifying "to play," "cat," and "with." 
Still, notwithstanding the early appearance, and, at the 
outset, at least, the seeming rapid growth of this power, 
throughout the entire investigation words that had ap- 
peared many times, and, on occasions, had been recog- 
nized at sight, would require pronouncing, and even 
then, in many instances, the meaning would not come. 
Again, visualization of words, also one of the " higher- 
order " habits, was observed on the fourth day. " To-day 



306 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

for the first time/' wrote the subject in his notes, "I 
was able to get the faintest suggestion of a visual image 
of two or three words that I was learning to decline." 
The increase of this power, while exasperatingly slow, 
was nevertheless noticeable. The fact that the subject 
is, in general, a poor visualizer naturally retarded the 
growth of this power. 

The curve would seem to indicate that during the pla- 
teau periods no progress is being made, but careful obser- 
vation of himself, in this investigation, and of pupils and 
students at their work, has convinced the writer that there 
is unquestionable progress at this time, only it is of such 
a nature that it cannot be measured and so does not re- 
veal itself in the curve. What is going on during these 
periods of apparent arrest is important in the psychology 
of learning and an eminently practical question for educa- 
tion. The cue for the interpretation seems to be given 
by the periods that are dominated by the feeling of mental 
confusion. These, in general, correspond to the plateaus 
of the curve. New factors in the study accumulate too rap- 
idly for immediate assimilation. Until they have become 
reasonably automatic, visible progress is impossible. On 
the twenty-first day, for example, just at the beginning of 
the long plateau, the subject wrote, '' a more or less ill de- 
fined mass seems to be settling down upon me. It looks as 
though time were needed for this turgid fluid to settle." 
It is a mistake, though, to assume that the learner is 
making no progress during this time. He is getting 
knowledge and it is gradually assuming a more orderly ar- 
rangement ; but it cannot affect the curve, except at ir- 
regular intervals, until it has acquired a certain effective 
force. The leap forward indicates that the automatization 
has improved and the power needed for further advance 
has been gained. Sometimes this becomes evident to the 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 307 

learner before the advance is made, as on the forty-seventh 
day, at the end of the long plateau of which we have been 
speaking, when the subject wrote, " I have a feeling that 
my score will jump soon." 

Closely connected with the fact that the automatization 
of so-called " higher-order " habits is contemporaneous 
with that of the " lower-order " is the observation that the 
progress of an automatization once started is not continu- 
ous. The mind grows by sections. It has long been known 
that in children interests follow one another because of 
the difference in the time of the attainment of functional 
maturity by the several parts of the brain. Probably this 
is only one phase of the more extensive principle that the 
acquisition of power is always by sections. The under- 
lying reason is physiological. Where it is not a matter of 
actual brain grow^th it is one of structural organization, — 
the opening of new paths of nervous discharge and their 
habituation to automatic functioning^. In the investig^a- 
tion of typewriting ^ this irregularity was observed in the 
growth of word associations and of position associations 
(location of the keys by muscular sense), and in this in- 
vestigation it was seen in the variation of the power to re- 
cognize words without pronouncing them, in the ability to 
visualize words, and in the knowledge of different classes 
of words. At times the subject seemed to make no pro- 
gress in one automatization, while in another he ad- 
vanced by strides. 

As in single automatizations, so also in the general 
forward movement, progress is never steady, but always 
by leaps preceded by longer or shorter periods of appar- 
ent cessation of progress. There is a gradual but irregular 
growth in the intelligibility of the subject-matter in hand, 
while interspersed within the period of general advance 

1 Loc. cit. 



308 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

are days when uncertainty and confusion dominate. When 
in the latter condition the learner feels that the whole 
thing is hopeless. A few sentences taken from the notes 
of successive days will illustrate this. On the sixteenth 
day the subject wrote, "The language seems to have taken 
on somewhat more intelligibility ; " but the following day 
he " did not experience the same ease as was felt yester- 
day." The next day "things went quite easily/' and 
this same feeling of ease continued through the nineteenth 
day ; on the twentieth, however, " the difficulties were 
numerous," and the following day saw no improvement. 
It will be noticed by referring to the curve that this is 
about the beginning of the long plateau, and the notes, 
in each instance written immediately after the test to 
which they refer, also indicate a period of apparent arrest 
of progress. On the twenty-second day, the next in order, 
this becomes still more evident. The notes now run : 
" Words and forms have been accumulating so rapidly 
lately that the feeling of confusion that seemed to be dis- 
appearing a few days ago has returned. It is the old 
chaotic feeling that characterized the early part of the 
work. Still, it is not quite so overwhelming as it was at 
that time." Again, on the following day, "everything is 
chaotic." By the twenty-seventh day, however, "the con- 
fusion is less apparent. The elements of the language are 
taking on a little order." But the change was only tem- 
porary, as the notes do not indicate any permanence in 
the improvement until the forty-second day, when "things 
seemed to go pretty well." From this time the notes give 
evidence of an increasing feeling of certainty, as on the 
fifty-third day, when, as. the notes say, "the difficulties 
are becoming somewhat differentiated and less confusing," 
and on tlie sixty-fourth, when " the translating begins to 
seem a little more natural." 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 309 

In the experiments on ball-tossing^ and on shorthand 
writing,^ and typewriting/ monotony was found to be an 
important factor in the rapidity with w^hich skill was ac- 
quired, and the same condition was observed in this work. 
Periods of monotony alternated with periods of pleasure 
in the work, and, at times, of keen enthusiasm. While, 
as has been said, it is not probable that the depression 
associated with the monotony caused the plateaus, it seems 
quite reasonable that it prolonged them. Generally, 
though not always, this feeling of discouragement corre- 
sponded with the plateaus of the curve, and it is an interest- 
ing fact that returning pleasure and confidence sometimes 
prophesied a new advance. On the forty-seventh day, for 
example, the subject felt that his score would "jump 
soon." 

The importance of the time element was very apparent. 
The accumulation of details of the subject-matter brings 
frequent periods when a certain length of time is needed 
for difficulties to adjust themselves, and until this mental 
organization is completed the facts are not readily usable. 
It is probable that no amount of work would make pro- 
gress continuous. Up to a certain point increased effort 
during periods of arrest may shorten the delay, but effort 
to the point of mental strain at such a time is of more 
than doubtful wisdom. The mind does its share toward 
mental clarification if the material is put clearly before it, 
but time is always needed if the organization is to be the 
best of which the mind is capable, or if the resulting 
acquisition is to be permanent. In the study of typewrit- 
ing this question was experimentally tested, and it was 
found that effort to " spurt " did not bring the desired 
result. Indeed, the exertion seemed rather to interfere 
with the automatization of associations and movements. 

^ Loc. cit. 2 £oc. cit. ^ Loc. cit. 



310 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

Time is needed, and time the mind will take. Overstrain 
and hurry tend to mental confusion rather than to clar- 
ification. 

Equal amounts of work do not produce equivalent re- 
sults. This fact was continually forced upon the subject. 
At times, when the study seemed unusually successful and 
the subject felt that the following test must markedly raise 
the score, the result would fall far below what had been ac- 
complished at other times. To account for this solely by 
a difference in the difficulties of the test exercises does 
not satisfy the conditions. Difficulties are always relative, 
and become wholly negligible in the presence of mental 
organization that comprehends the situation. We have 
here one phase of the time element involved in learning. 

The real advance in the early stages of learning is made 
during the periods of seeming arrest of progress. The 
manifest advance, that which is revealed by the curve or 
by examination marks, which is the same thing, is dis- 
couragingly brief. By far the greater part of the learning 
period is spent on plateaus when both teacher and pupil, 
failing to understand the situation, feel that they are 
marking time. Yet it is during these days of retardation 
that the valuable and solid acquisitions are bemg made. 
Americans who spend several years in Germany pass 
through a long period of discouragement. Though they 
study the language faithfully, and avail themselves of 
every opportunity to practice conversation, they seem to 
make absolutely no progress. The length of this plateau- 
period varies with different persons, but all experience its 
oppressiveness. Now the most curious feature of this 
plateau, aside from its overpowering monotony, is the 
suddenness with which it finally disappears. Several have 
told the writer that they went to sleep one night unable 
to understand anything, as it seemed to them, and utterly 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 311 

discouraged, and awoke the following morning to find 
that they had mastered the language, that they could 
understand practically everything that was said to them. 
The word associations and national peculiarities of thought 
sequence had been automatized during the long period 
when no visible progress was being made. The daily study 
counted for so Httle in comparison with the mass of pos- 
sible Avords and idioms that the partial acquisitions made 
from time to time could not assert themselves. Before 
this was possible it was necessary that the accumulation 
be great enough to give them effective force. The process 
by which these acquisitions were automatized was largely 
subconscious. Time, with patient, steady work, seems to 
be what is needed, and little immediate manifest effect 
should be expected. Plateaus in learning represent, among 
other things, the mind's revolt against further crowding 
and cramming. 

Summary of results and general inferences. — 1. The 
learning process is one of great irregularity. Days of 
advance are followed by periods of retardation and by 
single days of exceptionally low scores. But suddenly, 
and at times without previous premonition, the learner 
leaps forward. The new position, however, is frequently 
beyond his present permanent abihty, and, in that case, 
he falls back, but if so it is only for a short time, as 
the sudden advance presages a general forward movement. 
Physical condition, though always a factor in learning, 
cannot account for the variation. It is one of the char- 
acteristics of the learning process. 

2. There are not one or two periods of retardation 
when the " lower-order " habits are being automatized in 
preparation for the " higher-order." Instead of this there 
are many, and they are essential factors in the learning 



312 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

process, though the number probably varies somewhat 
with the nature of the subject studied, as well as with the 
rapidity with which ground is covered, and, in the case of 
school children, with the quality of the instruction given. 
Both simple and complex factors — " lower " and " higher 
order " habits — are present almost from the start, but in 
different degrees, the " lower order " predominating at the 
start, and the " higher " gradually assuming more impor- 
tance. The learner thus gradually passes from a stage of 
necessary, exact attention to the mechanical elements of 
the subject to a condition in which reaction to these ele- 
ments is automatic, and the mind is able to deal with 
them in groups as symbols of ideas. 

3. The learning process is a gradual and irregular 
growth from a condition of mental uncertainty and con- 
fusion to one of automatic certainty. 

4. Examinations given during periods of retardation — 
the plateaus of the curve — do not in any way show the 
progress of the learner. For this reason tests of pro- 
ficiency should always be given at a time when the pupils 
have been showing special proficiency for a few days, 
when they are well along in the upward movement of 
the curve. Since the progress of different children does 
not coincide from day to day, the disadvantage of class 
examinations is obvious. 

5. Monotony is always a factor in learning. It expresses 
the inability of the mind to continue interested in the 
same thing. The periods when the mind is trying to bring 
the confusing details of the subject-matter into intelligible 
order — the plateaus of the curve — tend to prolong the 
monotony, and it in turn probably increases the length 
of time of the arrest of progress. 

6. Time is needed for the mental content to become 
organized. In beginning a new subject details accumulate 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 313 

much faster than they can be assimilated. Failure to re- 
cognize this in the early part of the work brings increased 
confusion later and overwhelms the learner with irresist- 
ible discouragement. Reviews by means of new material 
and explanatory reorganization of the subject-matter are 
important here, but of no less moment are the material 
and method of the review. It must not be forgotten that 
this is also the period of monotony. 

7. The periods of real growth in the acquisition of 
knowledge are those of apparent arrest of progress, — the 
plateaus of the curve, ■ — and it is during these days that 
the teacher is tested. 

8. A large part of this growth is undoubtedly subcon- 
scious, but the efficiency of subconscious processes depends 
largely on the manner in which the details and conditions 
of the subject-matter are presented to the mind of the 
learner by the teacher and by his own conscious efforts. 



XI 

AN APPEAL FROM THE PREVAILING DOC- 
TRINE OF A DETACHED SUBCON- 
SCIOUSNESS 

Arthur Henry Pierce 

The doctrine that our conscious life is only partly upon 
the surface, that regions of it, of unspecified extent, lie 
somehow tucked away out of sight and immediate ken, 
has spread with astonishing rapidity since its vigorous 
promulgation about a quarter of a century ago. Just what 
the status of this doctrine is among professed psychologists 
it is hard to say. But despite the eminence of those who 
avowedly stand as its champions, I suspect that they have 
failed to carry the majority of psychologists with them. It 
is rather in other circles, it seems to me, that the doctrine 
has obtained a vogue. Those who have only a dilettante 
interest in matters psychological and are content with a 
certain respectable shallowness of thought have generally 
given the doctrine a hearty welcome, since it serves them 
in explaining so much in their experience that they have 
noted and found obscure. 

It was Hudson's ^'Law of Psychic Phenomena" that 
some years ago caught the lay readers of this country 
and gave them the vague phrase " subjective mind " for 
the easy solution of hitherto baffling perplexities. And 
now more recently the suggestion made in James's " Va- 
rieties of Religious Experience," that " the subconscious 
may be the mediating link between the human and 
the divine," has made the doctrine respectable and sig- 



316 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

nificant to the clergy, and to many readers of high 
intellia'euce who are not trained for the critical examina- 
tion of this sort of material. There has thus arisen a 
rhetorical term which, both in conversation and in fine 
writing, serves a ready and not too accurate purpose in a 
vast variety of situations. 

Especially deeply has this view rooted itself in minds 
leaning toward the occult, the happy blending of what is 
genuinely vague and mysterious with what is seemingly 
cast in a mould of scientific rigidity being well-nigh ideal 
for the enthralling of that type of mind. Accordingly 
the subconscious looms large in the spoken and written 
language of the modern healing cults. For the mental 
healers, under whatever specific designation they may 
appear, the subconscious is one of the fundamental veri- 
ties. It seems to be at once the source of all troubles and 
the source of all power. If fearful, it can produce dire ills; 
if fearless, it conduces to all that is good. Its powers 
range from the creation and destruction of disease germs 
to the telepathic control of the thoughts of others. 

The lay mind seems no less certain of the existence 
of a subconsciousness, though naturally enough it assigns 
less definite functions to it. In popular usage the sub- 
conscious refers ordinarily to a rather vaguely conceived 
repository of past experiences, and appeal is made to it 
mostly in cases where a word or fact cannot be recalled, 
or where it is held responsible for some bit of conduct 
which lacks the full sanction of conscious reflection. 

The most precise and extended formulations of the doc- 
trine have been made in connection with certain phases 
of mental pathology and in connection with those discus- 
sions which belong properly to the domain of Psychical 
Research. In the latter case the term " subliminal " is 
more often employed, — a term which in Myers's hands 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 317 

is given a metaphysical connotation that will not con- 
cern us here. 

A doctrine of such wide adoption and such rapid pro- 
mulgation ; a doctrine that by its very nature is exposed 
to a vast array of misinterpretations and abuses ; a doc- 
trine that is at once warmly welcomed by charlatans and 
the unscientific, adopted as good working hypothesis or 
even as proved fact by scientists of eminence, while re- 
jected or totally ignored by others of like eminence ; — 
such a doctrine it is certainly not out of place to subject 
to as rigid an examination as may be. To fulfill at least 
the spirit of such an examination is the purpose of this 
paper. First, then, we shall try to be clear about the 
meaning of the doctrine, in so far as this meaning has 
been defined, and then we shall endeavor to submit to 
a critical examination the evidence that the supporters 
of the doctrine have been wont to adduce. 

I. THE MEANING OF THE DOCTRINE 

The term " subconsciousness " has three quite distinct 
meanings. First, it may refer to the non-focal portion of 
any moment of actual consciousness, that portion which, 
to avoid confusion, is now almost universally called " mar- 
ginal." In this matter all are agreed. All admit a region 
of diminished attention, where processes are in a state of 
reduced vividness and where associative activities are at 
a minimum. About the existence of this variety of sub- 
consciousness there need be no discussion. 

The second meaning attached to subconsciousness may 
be conveniently called that of Leibniz. Here the term is 
meant to cover the indefinitely diminishing grades of 
consciousness in which all the items of our past expe- 
rience are still permanently existing. No conscious pro- 
cesses once experienced are ever lost. They have simply 



318 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY- AND PSYCHOLOGY 

sunk to grades of low intensity, awaiting some favorable 
conditions which shall bring them again to the full light 
of focal consciousness. On this view the entire field of 
consciousness is intact. There are no breaks or gaps. 
And the main feature of the doctrine lies in the thought 
that a being who could catch a glunpse of any person's 
total consciousness would be aware of a bright and vivid 
centre, shading off from which, out to dim boundaries 
limited only by the individual's life experiences, would 
lie the still living but subdued mental processes. 

The third meaning is the one we have set out to ex- 
amine. This type of subconsciousness differentiates itself 
from that just mentioned in two important particulars. 
First, the outlying processes are more or less sharply 
sundered from the primary consciousness and aggregated 
into groups of their own ; and secondly, such processes 
are not in a state of psychic inertness, but may attain 
high grades of intensity and display extraordinary activity. 
Here, too, the metaphor is for the most part changed. 
Consciousness is less often conceived pictorially as a field, 
but rather as something possessing levels or strata. To 
be s^^6conscious is not to be less conscious, but to be in a 
lower stratum of consciousness. This lower consciousness 
is not necessarily inferior in vividness or in diversity, only 
it has the misfortune to be separated from the normal 
upper consciousness and to be living a life of its own. 
The metaphors of language have been well-nigh exhausted 
in the attempt to characterize fitly this adjunct of our 
conscious life. It is referred to as " submerged," " sub- 
liminal," " secondary, " or, with a change of figure, as 
" split-oft*," or " extra-marginal." Often it is personified, 
and we read of the " subconscious self." And one writer, 
adopting the expression " sub- waking self," claims that 
" the life of the wakin<x self -consciousness flows within 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 319 

the larger life of the sub-waking self like a warm equa- 
torial current within the cold bosom of the ocean." But 
through all this diversity of names runs the one essential 
thought, that each individual gives shelter to at least a 
pair of consciousnesses, to the lower of which he is com- 
monly allowed no access. 

This detached and submerged consciousness appears in 
our dreams and in the hypnotic trance. From it come 
the visions seen in the crystal, and to it are directed the 
wholesome suggestions of the healer. It is personified 
because (under pressure) it assumes a name. It seems to 
possess what for the normal consciousness are long for- 
gotten experiences, and thus is likened to " a great covered 
reservoir in which is stored the total aggregation of past 
mental states and activities." But it is not in a state of inert 
quiescence that these vestiges of experience remain. This 
subconsciousness is not a mere place of safe keeping for 
what may be subsequently desired. No, there is much 
activity, and activity of all grades of worth. The subcon- 
scious may be fostering delusions or fixed ideas which 
from time to time are to pester the normal self. Or, at the 
other end of the scale of values, these hidden processes 
may undergo elaborations of the most delicate and mar- 
velous sort, until finally they attain a psychic tension 
which causes them to burst the barriers and emerge into 
the upper consciousness under the form of inspirations 
of genius. Believers in this doctrine are not accustomed 
to think of the various levels as separated by impassable 
walls. There may lie between them the "filmiest of 
screens," and, as just hinted, many an experience is but 
an irruption from the depths below. Moreover the upper 
and lower levels may, by proper manipulation, be made 
to coalesce, so that the hidden processes become revealed. 

Such, in fine, is the doctrine of subconsciousness with 



320 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

which we are here concerned. As we turn to the evidence 
which is appealed to in its support, we shall see still fur- 
ther characteristics and modes of behavior which this 
subconsciousness is supposed to display.^ 

II. THE EVIDENCE ADDUCED 

So diverse are the sources of the evidence and so varied 
the experiences cited in support of this theory that only 
the briefest sketch of them is possible within the limits of 
this paper. The bulk of the evidence is drawn on the one 
hand from certain pathological experiences, and on the 
other from those normal experiences which are ordinarily 
regarded as unusual. 

a. Pathological. — It seems to have been the shifting 
and contradictory phenomena presented by hysterical 
patients which first suggested the operations of a coex- 
isting but submerged consciousness. The writings of Janet 
and Binet on this subject are largely filled with these 
matters. The anaesthesias, the amnesias, the aboulias, and 
all the other bizarre and surprising manifestations of 
hystericals, are not in any sense, it is said, genuine phe- 
nomena. They are not what they seem. The sensations, 
memories, and what not, while denied to the e very-day 
self, are, we are told, gathered together in a submerged 
consciousness. As an indication that the disabilities men- 
tioned above are essentially unreal, it is pointed out that 

^ The principal sources where this doctrine may be studied are here col- 
lected : Wmei, Alterations of Personality ; Janet, L'Automatisme Psychologique ; 
\i^tat Mental des Hysteriques ; James, " The Hidden Self," Scribner's Magazine, 
1890 ; Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 233-236, 388,483, 511 ; Myers, 
Human Personality, especially ch. i, iii, vi, viii ; Sidis, Psychology of Sugges- 
tion • Multiple Personality ; Psychopathological Researches in Mental Dissocia- 
tion. For views adverse to the doctrine see Delabarre, in The Progress of 
the World, 1895, pp. 21-26 ; Jastrow, American Journal of Psychology, vol. 
xiv, p. 79 ; Pierce, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, July, 
1895. 



THE DETACHED SUBCOXSCIOUSXESS 321 

various devices may be employed for " tapping " the sub- 
conscious strata, whereupon the seemingly lost processes 
proceed to make themselves known. Distract the atten- 
tion of the patient by engaging her in an animated 
conversation, and the ansesthetic hand, in response to 
whispered questions or commands, will reveal by auto- 
matic writing or otherwise the possessions of the hidden 
consciousness. Thus Madame D., who cannot recall the 
name of the hospital interne, will automatically write it 
without difficulty. Or, by means of signs agreed upon, 
the anaesthetic hand will " converse " with the whispering 
investigator, giving evidence that its sensations are some- 
where intact and that memories lost to the normal self 
are still existent. Frequently, too, these lower levels of 
consciousness are reached by hypnosis, and then are laid 
bare the morbid memories and emotions, unremembered 
remnants of past happenings, which like pestering para- 
sites harass and torment the upper consciousness and give 
rise to many of the latter's otherwise inexplicable woes. 

Curious instances of intercommunication and coopera- 
tion of the two levels of consciousness are pointed out. 
Tell the patient to think of a name, and the concealed an- 
sesthetic hand will be seen to write it. Prick the anaesthe- 
tic hand three times, and the subject, if questioned, will 
report that she is thinking of the number three. Thus, as 
Binet puts it, the one consciousness whispers its experi- 
ence to the other. There is also frequently, as in the last 
case cited, a "transmutation of the subconscious message" 
in such wise that though the impression of the secondary 
consciousness be tactual, the primary level receives it in 
the form of visual, articulatory, or other imagery. 

Another region of the pathological has been exploited 
by Sidis. Amnesias consequent upon accident or accom- 
panying disorders other than hysterical are, it is claimed, 



322 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

by no means absolute. The secondary consciousness still 
contains them. The interesting case of Thomas Hanna is 
an excellent illustration of this claim.^ The submerged 
memories, we are told, were " raised " either during the 
occurrence of ordinary dreaming or by a method known 
as " hypnoidization." This method consists simply in get- 
ting the individual into a state of concentrated calm where- 
upon, with eyes closed and perhaps with the hand of the 
physician laid upon his forehead, he is asked to describe 
the scenes that pass before his mind. " In the case of our 
patient," writes Dr. Sidis, " the h}^noidization brought 
forth phenomena of the utmost interest and value. Events, 
names of persons, of places, sentences, phrases, whole par- 
agraphs of books totally lapsed from memory, and in 
languages the very words of which sounded bizarre to his 
ears and the meaning of which was to him inscrutable 
— all that flashed lightning-like on the patient's mind. 
So successful was this method, that on one occasion the 
patient was frightened by the flood of memories that rose 
suddenly from the obscure subconscious regions, deluged 
his mind, and were expressed aloud, only to be forgotten 
the next moment. To the patient himself it appeared as 
if another being took possession of his tongue." So, too, 
many of Mr. Hanna's dreams vividly recalled the striking 
events immediately preceding his accident, though the 
upper consciousness could not distinguish them from pure 
creatures of fancy. 

6. Unusual normal experiences. —But we are not com- 
pelled to go to the pathological for all our evidence. When 
once we know how and where to look for it, many an 
experience, we are told, can reveal to us the hidden re- 
sources of our minds. To such experiences belong par- 
ticularly the facts of normal automatic writing, by which 

1 See the interestiug account of this case iu Sidis's Multiple Personality. 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 323 

long-forgotten literary passages are reproduced while the 
conscious self is unaware of what is being written; the facts 
of crystal vision, by which lapsed memories of addresses, 
names, or scraps of verse are restored, or images aroused 
of rooms or corners of landscape which, though having 
come within the field of ^dsion, have never been consciously 
perceived; and all those phenomena peculiar to the genius, 
of whatever type, in his moments of productive activity. 
Our dreams also are frequently revealers of the subcon- 
scious, if indeed the dream-consciousness is not largely 
identical with subconsciousness. 

The evidence from the phenomena of genius is the 
most striking in its dramatic quality. It is Myers who has 
most powerfully called attention to this. To realize the 
force of the argument one has only to recall the almost 
universal testimony of gifted poets, musicians, playwrights, 
and orators to the effect that their material often comes 
to them " with all the surprise of novelty and of extra- 
neous origin." They are invaded by their brilliant intui- 
tions, their unexpected insights, their flashes of inspira- 
tion. For all these their conscious self feels no personal 
responsibility. The creative genius, whether as a poet 
" singing hymns unbidden," or as a statesman evolving 
a policy, stands as spectator and listener over against the 
" subliminal uprushes " into his normal consciousness, as 
De Musset, Saint-Saens, and many another lesser genius 
has abundantly testified. How, then, we are asked, can we 
avoid acknowledging a subconscious region where incuba- 
tions and elaborations proceed without cooperation on our 
part, and where, as James puts it, we must postulate "sub- 
consciously maturing processes, eventuating in results of 
which we grow suddenly conscious ? " 



324 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 
III. CERTAIN QUESTIONS RAISED 

a. Do all ivriters on the subconscious and all who 
profess to believe in its existence refer umnistakably to 
sundered and submerged groups of conscious elements, 
or do they really mean to speak only of sunderings and 
segregations that have taken j^lace in the nervous sys- 
tem f — The vocabulary of psychology is often so much 
more accessible and pliable for descriptive use that writers 
who have not cared to discriminate too sharply between 
the physical and the psychical have hopelessly confused 
the terms of their descriptions. If space allowed, abun- 
dant illustrations of this confusion could be given. With 
the actuality of such confusion in mind, I cannot help 
thinking, with a good deal of conviction, that some of 
those who have arrived at the doctrine of the subconscious 
through the medium of mental pathology are really mean- 
ing by the term to refer to the functioning of neurones 
and neurone groups, the real structures with which, as 
pathologists, they are primarily and fundamentally con- 
cerned. Meanwhile, however, the psychological termi- 
nology is more convenient for their descriptive purposes, 
and before they are fuljy aware of their situation they 
have plunged themselves into a phraseology which must 
be taken by the reader to refer to genuine psychological 
realities. But these doubtful cases aside, a large residuum 
of writers is left who, if language is ever to be trusted, 
refer indubitably to a splitting up of consciousness itself. 

&. Is the subconscious supposed to have a cerebrcd 
basis ? — It seems quite absurd to ra;ise this question, yet 
it is worth while to be clear upon the point, since free- 
dom from cerebral constraint seems so often to be implied. 
I think we may unhesitatingly give an affirmative reply 
to this question. Myers speaks of a " cerebration beneath 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 325 

the ordinary threshold of consciousness." James utters the 
opinion that " organized systems of paths [brain paths] 
can be thrown out of gear with others, so that the pro- 
cesses in one system give rise to one consciousness, and 
those of another system to another simultaneously exist- 
ing consciousness." And Sidis speaks of the dissociation 
which causes subconscious phenomena as psychojohysiccd, 
as a " dissociation and disaggregation of systems of central 
neural elements with their concomitant psychic systems." 
These may be taken as distinct admissions that the same 
parallelistic relations are supposed to hold in respect to 
the subconscious as in the case of normal consciousness. 
The force of this admission w^e shall see later. 

c. Does the term " subconsciousness " refer to an hy- 
pothesis submitted for the explanation and interpreta- 
tion of certain observed facts, or does it stand for a 
demonstrable and already demonstrated reality f — In 
their better moments the chief expounders of the subcon- 
scious speak of the hypothesis which they are upholding/ 
admitting freely that it is an inference from the facts 
observed. But their better moments are not lasting, and 
forthwith they forget — for the most part — that they 
should be engaged in the perpetual testing of this suppo- 
sition ; they fall into speaking of it as a demonstrated 
reality to be appealed to as an unquestioned means of 
further explanation. Thus James ^ writes of the subcon- 
scious as " a recognized psychological fact," as a " now- 
adays well-accredited psychological entity." And on the 
part of the uncritical accepters of this doctrine there is 
not the shadow of a doubt that this subconsciousness 
of which they hear and read is as little to be questioned 

1 See, for example, Myers, Human Personality, vol. i, pp. 15, 16 ; Janet, 
JEtat Mental, vol. i, pp. 44, 45 ; Sidis, Psychopathological Researches, -p. 21. 

2 Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 511, 512. 



326 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

as their momentary mental life testified to by direct intro- 
spection. 

IV. THE EVIDENCE EXAMINED 

There are certain commonplace requirements imposed 
by the logic of science upon one who seeks to interpret 
and explain, which seem to have been overlooked with a 
singular facility by those who espouse the subconscious. 
One of these requirements — so obvious that one hardly 
dares bring against another the reproach of neglecting 
it — is that a new hypothesis is to be erected only after 
every struggle to include the new facts within the circuit 
of the old has proved ineffectual. To multiply hypotheses 
when fewer are equal to the task of furnishing a com- 
prehensive understanding of the facts is certainly to run 
counter to the canons of scientific method. Now the ad- 
vocates of a detached consciousness have been singularly 
heedless of these demands. They have made no adequate 
endeavor to understand their facts in the light of the 
legitimate marginal consciousness on the one hand or 
of pure physiological processes on the other, but have 
launched themselves with unscientific temerity upon the 
sea of a new hypothesis. 

It will conduce to a clear understanding of our discus- 
sion of the various facts that have been sketched above, 
if at the outset we can agree upon a few guiding princi- 
ples. I shall adopt the following : — 

1. Inference and observed fact must he relentlessly 
discrhninated. — This is a simple and fundamental logical 
principle, but failure to pay it the slightest heed is one of 
the most conspicuous traits of several of the voluminous 
writers on the subconscious. 

2. Of two or more loossihle exj^lanations for a given 
fact or set of facts the simplest is always to he chosen. — 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 327 

It seems sometimes to be forgotten that the law of par- 
simony holds in psychology as well as in the natural 
sciences. 

3. If aid in explanation is to he sought through 
analogy, it is analogy ivith the simple, normal, well- 
established, or already accepted that is always to he 
given preference over that with the complex and excep- 
tional. 

Let no one sneer at the insistence laid here upon these 
elementary and, to some, ultra-obvious principles, before 
convincing himself of the scandalous frequency with 
which their infraction is to be found in certain writers on 
the subconscious. The snares that beset the imaginative 
writer in tliis field are almost precisely those that entrap 
the present-day litterateurs who concern themselves with 
animal life and mentaHty. Here, as there, in place of the 
simple observed fact, distinct from its suggested inter- 
pretation, we are given directly and as if it were the low- 
est terms of the matter what the writer himself has poet- 
ized into the facts. Here, as there, when explanation is 
needed, it is not the most simple and straightforward but 
the most dramatic explanation that is proposed. And 
finally here, as there, analogy runs such unbridled riot 
that the distinction between its products and those of 
genuine proof become blurred and forgotten. 

With these preliminaries let us come to a serious ex- 
amination of the alleged facts. 

a. Automatic loriting. 

So far as I am aware, no one has ever found it neces- 
sary to posit a secondary consciousness to explain such 
uncontrollable tremblings and twitchings of the body as 
occur occasionally in all of us and most markedly in such 
nervous troubles as chorea, locomotor ataxia, and general 



328 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

paralysis. If, now, a detached guiding consciousness is 
posited in the case of automatic writing, it must be be- 
cause the movements of the hand display a coherent series 
of coordinated movements. The usual conscious control- 
series being wanting, and such a control-series being sup- 
posed essential, a sundered consciousness is assumed to 
contain it. This seems to be the argument. And the 
question is, simply, whether we need' to assume a guiding 
consciousness, or may explain the matter in cerebral terms 
alone. 

Certain of the well-known facts of automatic writing 
are persistently slurred over by the majority of writers 
when they come to the matter of explanation. Such facts 
are these : The hand will frequently write backwards ; or 
it will write mirror script ; or, if a certain motion — e. g. 
a circular one — be imposed upon it by the investigator, 
this motion will be repeated indefinitely; sometimes, too, 
letters are misplaced so that puzzling anagrams appear to 
have been written, as in the " Clelia case " of the Society 
for Psychical Research. Surely such occurrences point 
clearly enough to a disordered neural mechanism rather 
than to a perverse or humorously inclined secondary con- 
sciousness, an assumption too absurd for serious consider- 
ation. And we are certainly more obedient to the behests 
of scientific method when we classify the imperfections of 
automatic writing with the deranged movements of ner- 
vous disease and find their cause in similar fashion. But 
if this is so, how shall we proceed ? Shall we employ two 
varieties of explanation ? Shall we say that the coherent 
and apparently communicative sentences of the automati- 
cally moving hand are to be understood by referring them 
to a bit of consciousness that has floated off from the 
main stream, while the slips and irregularities and incoher- 
ences are due to neural derangements ? Shall we not be 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 329 

more consistent, and thus more rational, when we take 
these more successful performances to indicate to us an 
underlying neural mechanism so highly organized by past 
experience that under appropriate circumstances it may 
work without guidance ? The writing mechanism is so 
highly and delicately developed in us writing mortals that 
it is small wonder that it may operate independently 
when, for one cause or another, its system of neural con- 
nections has become severed from that other system which 
for the moment is subserving consciousness. On the other 
hand, if we adopt the hypothesis of a secondary conscious- 
ness and consistently apply it, we must suppose it to 
superintend much that we ordinarily place in the sphere 
of habit. How, for example, do we unerringly compound 
the strokes of a rapidly written word such as " immunity " ? 
Is a consciousness standing over the writing mechanism, 
counting the strokes with rounded summits that belong 
to the m's and n^s and the strokes with pointed summits 
that belong to the i's and it^s ? I, for one, can get full 
satisfaction in the belief that when my personal conscious- 
ness is not supervising my bodily movements, they are 
not being consciously supervised at all. 

This cerebral interpretation finds a measure of sub- 
stantiation in the fact that automatic movements may be 
acquired by persons not otherwise presenting them, pro- 
vided that the effort at acquisition be sufficiently persist- 
ent. This was demonstrated some years ago by Solomons 
and Stein.^ The attention being engrossed by interesting 
reading, they gradually acquired the power to write auto- 
matically, both when the initial movement was impressed 
upon the hand by the operator and when the words to be 
written were dictated. To be sure, a sustained automatism 
was not secured in these experiments, for after the sub- 
1 " Normal Motor Automatism," Psychological Review, vol. iii, 1896, p. 492. 



330 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AXD PSYCHOLOGY 

jects obtained periods of unconsciousness of movements 
extending over five or six words, the attempt at further 
education in this direction was dropped. It is noteworthy 
that when the period of unconsciousness was broken by 
a flash of consciousness, the movements of the arm seemed 
" extra personal/' now cognized but not guided. To inter- 
pret these experiences as due to a more or less complete 
segregation of the neural writing system seems vastly 
simpler and more satisfactory than to conjecture that 
certain conscious processes have also simultaneously cut 
themselves adrift and organized themselves into a control- 
series. The former is the view of the experimenters them- 
selves, who express the opinion that we are prone to set 
too low an estimate upon our powers of genuinely auto- 
matic behavior. 

A few objections to this physiological interpretation 
must be met. Binet found that when the hysteric's anaes- 
thetic hand was made to write a word with an erroneous 
spelling, the hand, in repeating the impressed movement, 
would hesitate at the point where the wrong letter had 
been inserted, seem to ponder a moment, and then write 
the word correctly. But such action may be interpreted 
either as due to competition between nervous impulses, 
the one started by the operator, the other due to the 
habitual sequence of the subject's movements in this par- 
ticular, or we may suppose that at the instant of correc- 
tion there was a real flash of consciousness, which set 
things straight and immediately lapsed. Such flashes as 
this latter are certainly not to be denied to the shift- 
ing and unstable consciousness of the hysteric. A more 
serious objection to this view could be raised if the 
automatic writing should at any time reveal knowledge 
not possessed by the writer and not in any way due to the 
suggestions of the operator. That such knowledge is ever 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 331 

expressed there seems to the present writer to be no 
unequivocal testimony. And were such knowledge ex- 
pressed, its explanation would require a far more compli- 
cated hypothesis than that which we have here under 
review. 

h. Simple communications. — Crystal vision, — (7on- 
jiicting levels. 

1. When the crystal gazer sees visions either of for- 
gotten experiences or of objects and scenes that have 
never been consciously perceived, though they have 
fallen within* the range of his vision, we are said to 
have evidence that the lower levels of consciousness are 
communicating with the upper level. For must not the 
forgotten experience have been retained in the subcon- 
scious, and in the case of the unrecognized scene, in 
addition to its retention by the subsconscious, must it 
not also have been first noted by it ? Under the influence 
of the crystal, then, we are to believe, the subconscious- 
ness yields up its treasures and passes them over to the 
primary consciousness. But now I submit, is not the 
cooperation of the subconsciousness here a quite gratui- 
tous assumption? Suppose the forgotten name or ad- 
dress or line of poetry is seen in the crystal. Are we 
obliged to describe these acts of recall as " recrudescent 
memories, rising thus and thus only from the subconscious 
strata to which they had sunk"?^ What is it, exactly, 
" to sink to a subconscious stratum " ? And after some- 
thing has sunk there, how is it to be retained ? Are pro- 
cesses in subconsciousness supposed to be abiding and 
permanent affairs ? Is the evanescent and fleeting char- 
acter of processes something that holds only in the normal 
level ? No, if we are to think consistently, we must admit 
that subconscious processes — granting for the moment 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. v, p. 505. 



332 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

their existence — are as little endowed with permanence 
as any process in either the mental or the physical world. 
The subconscious process, as well as any other, must fade 
and vanish and be represented in its absence by its con- 
comitant cerebral disposition. But if this is so, why need 
we assume that the renewed excitation of this disposition — 
accomplished, it would seem, through the stimulating effect 
of the crystal vision — conditions first of all the revival of 
a subconscious process which then, in some fashion not 
to be definitely stated, is conveyed to the superior level 
of consciousness ? To a straightforward and uninfected 
thinker on these matters it would seem that since the 
cerebral dispositions in question can be aroused through 
fully conscious activities, — those, namely, of fixed and 
expectant gazing, — the conscious process corresponding 
to this arousal could be supposed to appear directly in 
the normal consciousness without the dramatic and essen- 
tially inexplicable mediation of a secondary consciousness, 
w^hich for some cause or other proceeds to deliver it over 
to a higher level. The advocate of subconsciousness must 
here put forward an hypothesis more complex than his 
facts can demand or warrant. 

Essentially the same comment is to be made on those 
other cases where the crystal vision reveals unrecognized 
scenes and the like. If the jessamine-covered wall appear- 
ing in the crystal ^ turns out to be located at the spot 
where on the previous day an absorbing conversation was 
being carried on, must we suppose that a hypersesthetic 
subconsciousness took note of the same and stored up the 
vision, or is it sufficient to say that the visual impressions 
w^ere marginally received, their appropriate dispositions 
being revived on the following day by the exercise of 
concentration upon the crystal ? It is the latter again that 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. v, pp. 50C-507. 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 333 

seems the more simple mode of interpretation, and as 
such, if it satisfies the case, we are bound to adopt it. It 
is to be noted, too, that this mode of regarding the matter 
enables us to establish a continuity with certain quite nor- 
mal occurrences. For unnoticed impressions may appear 
in the form of after-images, or as hypnagogic visions, or 
as well-defined dream imagery. And it is certainly labored 
in these cases to interpolate a secondary consciousness 
between the physiological reception of the impression and 
the appearance of a conscious process corresponding to it. 
The alternative hypothesis would substitute for the dim 
apprehension of an experience by the marginal region of 
consciousness a supposedly vivid and clear apprehension 
of the experience by a detached and coworking conscious- 
ness, which while the primary consciousness is occupied 
can itself be concerned with what the primary conscious- 
ness fails to notice. It must be left to the reader to 
decide which is the more adequate hypothesis. It may, 
however, be remarked that it is difficult to conceive how 
the same sense organ may be thus used in the interests of 
two separate consciousnesses, and how, further, each con- 
sciousness sorts out what shall be its peculiar property. 

Other cases of communication similar to those men- 
tioned on page 321, where the initial experience is "trans- 
muted " in the course of its transference from one level 
to the other, reveal, I believe, nothing new in principle 
beyond what has been discussed above. In another con- 
nection ^ I have tried to show that all these phenomena 
are quite analogous to normal happenings, and I must 
content myself here with referring any interested reader 
to the discussions indicated in the footnote. 

2. The advocates of a secondary consciousness have 

1 Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. i, 1904, 
p. 400 ; vol. ii, 1905, p. 293. 



33-4 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

made miicli of what they have alleged to be phenomena 
of conflict between the two levels. The lower stratum is 
supposed to harbor within its depths remembrances of 
former dreads, anxieties, frights, or other disagreeable 
happenings, and by means of these to torment and bother 
the upper consciousness. The subconsciousness has now 
become parasitic. The experiences of Janet's subject 
Marie, together with the removals by successive hypno- 
tizations of the pestering memories that caused all her 
troubles, have been graphically told by James.^ The main 
clinical desideratum in these parasitic cases is, we are told, 
to get the morbid memories somehow into full conscious- 
ness, where they may be looked squarely in the face, yes, 
even cursed and sworn at in fits of weeping, whereupon 
they usually disappear. 

But how, pray, may one layer of consciousness affect 
another in the manner alleged? To suppose a lower level 
to pass up ideas and images — as in crystal vision — is 
difficult enough to conceive, but at least it is true that 
in such cases definite ideas and images are found in the 
upper consciousness which seem to have come from some- 
where. But what is here passed up ? Apparently nothing 
is really delivered over except some indefinite sort of in- 
fluence, the particular direction in which this will proceed 
to develop being quite unpredictable. But how one level 
may thus exert a baneful influence upon another, we are 
not informed. And indeed we have no analogy to guide 
us in trying to construct an hypothesis as to how two 
sundered consciousnesses may jostle each other and come 
into hostile collision without at the moment coalescing in 
part and thus, to that extent, becoming one consciousness. 

To be sure, hypnosis is said to reveal the tormenting 
memory. But even though the hypnotic and the secondary 

1 " The Hidden Self," Scrihner's Magazine, 1890. 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 335 

consciousness be identical, this discovery cannot be made 
to mean that this memory had been perpetually present in 
the submerged level. All that we can properly affirm is 
that the cerebral conditions of this memory were still 
existent. And we seem to be remaining much more within 
the region o£ verifiable and comprehensible realities when 
we attribute the ^^ parasitic torment," not to a hypothetical 
and necessarily transitory memory, which in inexplicable 
fashion is feeding upon a consciousness other than that 
which contains it, but rather to a permanent centre or 
region of cortical irritation, due to pre\dous nervous 
shock, which may indeed extend its influence to adjacent 
cortical regions. This latter is vague enough, to be sure. 
But certainly we know something about neural inhibitions 
and other cortical influences, whereas we know nothing 
about the possibility or manner of interplay between dis- 
cordant and pestering consciousnesses. 

Here, as elsewhere in the argument, it will be seen that 
we are pleading for continuity with the usual and for 
analogy with the simplest counterpart in normal experi- 
ence. And in these parasitic cases we seem to have only 
exaggerations, implanted upon an unstable and diseased 
nervous system, of those normal experiences which we 
know as states of depression, due confessedly to fatigue 
or to some other more grave but still temporary disorder 
of the nervous system. 

I cannot leave this topic without a word in reference 
to a dramatic variety of plaguing and joke-playing which 
one consciousness is alleged to perpetrate upon the other. 
. Janet's Leonie 2 outwits Leonie 1 by placing letters, which 
Leonie 1 would otherwise have destroyed, in an album 
beside a picture which said Leonie 1 disliked and avoided. 
Sally Beauchamp, the complex and elusive subject of Dr. 
Morton Prince, affords the best example of this variety of 



336 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

teasing which the literature of the topic contains.^ B III, 
herself lacking timidity and aware of the qualms of B I, 
teases the latter by bringing in snakes and spiders for her 
undoing when she shall awake and become the dominant 
consciousness. But I fail to see in these cases anything 
more than a morbid extension of those changes which we 
all normally experience within our own personalities when 
we pass from moments of expanded vision and volitional 
power to those contracted and detested states which we 
feel to be but wretched representatives of our real selves. 
The richer state deplores, if it does not actually hate, the 
anaemic other self whose presence it foresees. If this 
dramatic sundering is accomplished with a sufficiently 
lively fancy, the " teasing " is but a short step in the de- 
velopment of the plot. In some favorable and command- 
ing moment one abjures coffee, though knowing that 
deplorable results will temporarily follow. " Let that 
weakly indulgent self suffer and learn its weakness," is the 
high and mighty comment of the complacent and dicta- 
torial self of the moment. This, both for the onlooker 
and for the suffering self, is certainly not without analogy 
with the morbid case referred to. One has but to assume 
an exaggeration of the normally contradictory and war- 
ring phases of personality, — an assumption amply borne 
out by the facts, — add a strong dramatic tendency, 
helped out amazingly in such cases by an earnest desire 
to give the investigator what he is supposed to expect, 
and admit the forgetfulness in state I of what prompted 
the act of state III, whereupon there seems scant ground 
for supposing that we have a case where one level of per- 
sonality is assailing another less favored offshoot which 
enjoys an existence simultaneous with its own. 

1 The Dissociation of a Personality, or, Proceedings of Society for Psy- 
chical Research, 1900, p. 466. 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 337 

I have dwelt thus at length upon these cases of com- 
munication, not because I think this is the stronghold of 
the position which I am endeavoring to attack, but be- 
cause they seem to have carried conviction to the minds 
of many in a way out of all proportion to the warrant of 
the facts. 

c. Communication after subterranean elaboration, — 
Genius and coiiversion, 

1. Genius, — To such a degree is the genius an object 
of our wondering admiration that we are often prone to 
place him in a category apart and to seek strange ways of 
explaining his singularities. We shrink from an expla- 
nation that shall too easily dispose of him. In fact, for 
many minds a decent residuum of the incomprehensible 
seems best to befit the case. We forget frequently to 
search for evidence of continuity between the processes 
of the genius and those of the common herd. The poetic 
manner of conceiving him is too attractive to permit of 
such an apparent vilification of him. We like to think 
of his products as issuing fountain-like and ungrudgingly 
from some hidden and mysterious source. We like to 
think him relieved of all the toil and distress of construc- 
tive thought, his mind being irresistibly invaded by the 
finished product cunningly wrought he knows not where. 
Now as psychological experience this fact of invasion is 
to a great extent true. It is not alone in the awed won- 
der of others that the doctrine of inspiration has had its 
source. The genius himself testifies to a large measure of 
helplessness and irresponsibility. He finds his material 
ready, and its arrival constitutes the mystery. Where was 
it wrought, and how? This is one of the problems of 
genius. 

It is this problem of the arrival of material and the 
mode of its fashioning which the doctrine of the sub- 



338 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

conscious seeks to meet. In a word we may say that this 
doctrine asserts that the genius's material arrives by com- 
munication from the subconsciousness, where its incu- 
bation and elaboration have been going forward. The 
novel feature of the situation, beyond the simple commu- 
nication phenomena of the foregoing section, is then the 
allegation that subconsciousness achieves the full prepa- 
ration of the material before it is delivered over to the 
upper consciousness. It is from this point of view that 
Myers speaks of genius as " a power of appropriating the 
results of subliminal mentation to subserve the supra- 
liminal stream of thought; so that an ^inspiration of 
genius' will be in truth a subliminal iqjrush,sin emergence 
into the current of ideas which the man is consciously 
manipulating of other ideas which he has not consciously 
originated, but which have shaped themselves beyond 
his will, in profounder regions of his being," ^ Though 
couched in terms of the " subliminal," we may by the sub- 
stitution of the word "subconscious" allow this statement 
to stand as an expression of the current opinion about 
genius held by the believers in the subconscious. And 
without any further exposition of such views, we may 
address ourselves to the task of inquiring whether a less 
mystical way of interpreting the invasions and unhidden 
uprushes of the genius may not be devised. 

In the interests of continuity of explanation, must we 
not recognize at once and in full measure that, aside from 
the products of immediate perception, the entire mass of 
our material of thought and fancy arrives in conscious- 
ness often with a certain galling display of insolent inde- 
pendence ? As psychologists have repeatedly pointed out, 
if the mechanism of association declines to work, we are 

* Human Personality, vol. i, p. 71. Cf. Binet, Annee Psychologique, vol. i, 
1894, p. 119 ff. 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 339 

helpless in the situation, and in respect to this particular 
psychic material, we remain in want. All ideational ma- 
terial is, as it were, landed in consciousness, as are the 
passengers of an incoming steamship at their destined 
wharf. But there are differences to be noted in the arri- 
vals. Some are expected. These are the ideas and images 
which we well know and which have been summoned for 
present purposes. But some are unexpected. Their faces 
are unknown. For a moment they surprise us by the 
careless ease with which they make themselves at home. 
These are the sudden insights, the up rushes, the inspira- 
tions. And these we must account for. Where did they 
have their birth ? 

Let us note immediately that vastly more of our psy- 
chic material than we are wont to suppose arrives in con- 
sciousness with an alien mien. Our clever retorts; our 
humorous characterizations; our fresh ways of putting 
things; the issues to our sentences, coming often with an 
effectiveness of turn that the beginning could never have 
foreshadowed ; — all these, and infinitely more of our 
every-day experiences, evidence the abundance of telling 
activity occurring somewhere outside the confines of con- 
sciousness. Something occurs in a region beyond our 
direct control, and consciousness is supplied with combi- 
nations utterly strange to it. We thus see that what we 
have to explain is not alone the inspirations of genius but 
the ahen arrivals of every sort, the peaceful invaders of 
every consciousness wherein there is a successful creation, 
however humble it may be. What, then, is the nature of 
that process by which new and strange products are 
fashioned, to emerge later in consciousness ? 

It is the notion of organized systems of cortical dispo- 
sitions that must again be summoned to our aid. With 
this hypothesis we can secure continuity over a large field 



340 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

of facts. On the one hand we have the incoherent ravings 
of the maniac, which we explain by the disordered and 
unstable brain. There is abundance of cerebration here, 
but Httle organization. An instance of greater organiza- 
tion is afforded by cases of retinal inflammation/ where 
with perfect helplessness one is treated to moving visions 
of landscapes, or what not, of unforeseen character and 
with a mode of development utterly beyond the specta- 
tor's control. We have no difficulty, I think, in under- 
standing these and like experiences by appealing to the 
brain as their cause. But as soon as evidence of still fur- 
ther organization appears, why need we leap to the sub- 
liminal for aid ? Every experience that w^e have leaves its 
trace behind. If our experiences are orderly, these traces 
must form themselves into groups and systems of organ- 
ized dispositions. Now the genius never gets his inspi- 
rations without special preparation for them. The poet 
does not suffer uprushes of thought concerned with ad- 
ministrative policy, nor does the military genius find his 
mind invaded by scientific hypotheses. And this prepa- 
ration is such that the brain of the genius must be 
surcharged with the deposits of past perceptions and 
reflections. And granting the delicate poise and balance 
of the " high " brain of the genius, can we hesitate to 
believe that combinations of existing dispositions will 
w^ork themselves out in unlimited fashion ? Yes, particu- 
larly in the absence of conscious effort, may it be true 
that the possibility of these novel combinations is pre- 
pared for. For then the emphases are removed and the 
delicate interplay of neurones that corresponds to asso- 
ciations by similarity — the leading prerogative of the 
genius — may be preparing. This, I take it, is all that 
we need mean when we acknowledge, as I think we readily 

^ See Caveruo, " lucipieut Pseudopia," Psychological Review, vol. xi, p. 338. 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 341 

must, that in the intervals of inactivity, whether of genius 
or of ordinary mortal, many events of importance are 
passing, the outcome of which will be registered in later 
moments of consciousness. These, then, are the incuba- 
tions, the maturings, the elaborations of processes, — occur- 
rences outside the pale of conscious thought, and nowhere 
else than in those inconceivably delicate structures that 
constitute the cerebral cortex. Dense as is our ignorance 
of the details of what happens here, we are certainly jus- 
tified in assuming the existence of neural patterns which 
in the delicate cerebral tissue of the genius may form and^ 
dissolve and reform with kaleidoscopic swiftness and va- 
riety, with neurone contacts now here, now there, and with 
patterns which represent on the whole no mere copy of 
the original total excitation but rather those new settings 
and combinations between parts which underlie focalized 
association and which thus usher into consciousness, 
through plays of analogy, those arrivals which are the 
real inspirations of genius. Whether we have the mad- 
man or the genius depends upon the particular cerebral 
patterns that get formed. The mechanism of the matter 
in this particular is the same for both. We may conjec- 
ture that these rearrangements are due in part to the 
amoeboid movements of the neurone processes or in part 
to the influences of nutrition and blood supply. That 
some change or other does actually take place is attested 
by what happens when we are acquiring some bit of 
skilled movement. Every one knows that improvement 
goes on in the intervals between practice, sometimes 
indeed to a surprising degree. The neural pattern has set- 
tled and grown into its modes in the absence of — and 
probably because of the absence of — all conscious effort. 
That a cerebral rather than a psychical cause should be 
assigned to the uprushes, of whatever grade they may be. 



342 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

is strongly indicated by the fact that they are so predom- 
inantly and immistakahly dejjendeM upon definitely as- 
signable p)liysical conditions. Whatever increases the 
cerebral tensions^ increases the arrivals in consciousness, 
— robust health, excitement, artificial stimulation in any 
form. Whatever, like fatigue or appropriate drugs, lowers 
the cerebral tensions leads to a stagnation of the con- 
scious stream. We have only to recall Spencer, alternately 
writing a few pages of his psychology and engaging in a 
bout at tennis for the purpose of arousing his cerebral 
output. 

The sense of being a mere watcher and listener y as un- 
expected arrivals invade consciousness, is by no means 
confined to the genius. Only this sense of the situation 
may be more fully impressed upon him owing to the more 
surprising character of the products that enter and pass 
before him. 

An argument of much force can, it seems to me, be 
constructed against the advocates of subconscious elabo- 
ration by exhibiting the consequences of their assumption 
that the dream consciousness is one aspect of the secon- 
dary consciousness. If this is so, and if the secondary 
consciousness is the subterranean factory in which the 
toil and stress of mental elaboration are going forward, it 
would seem that the dream should occasionally be the 
theatre of such activity. But I cannot discover that this 
is ever the case. In dream speeches, in brilliant rejoin- 
ders to dream companions, in solutions of problems that 
have baffled the waking self, the dreamer is aware of no 
effort. He is the inert spectator, experiencing the dream, 
but taking no part in its progress. So far as I can see, 
the dream offers no whit of evidence of that elaborative 
travail in which the secondary consciousness is supposed 
to engage. The dilemma then is obvious. Either the 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 343 

dream is not the partially revealed secondary conscious- 
ness, or the secondary consciousness is not wont to carry 
on those operations hypothetically attributed to it. 

2. Co7iversion. — So similar are the claims advanced 
for the explanation of conversions and the phenomena of 
genius that after the foregoing discussion of the latter, a 
separate discussion of conversion may be dispensed with. 
The same claims of operations extraneous to conscious- 
ness, the same irresponsibility of results, is here alleged. 
The moment of conversion is but the bursting into flower 
of the energies long incubated subconsciously. The 
subliminal process has matured, and having reached its 
bursting point of tension, it rushes full fledged into con- 
sciousness.^ As no new principle is involved, we may 
allow the previous section to apply alike to genius and to 
conversion. 

d. The storehouse notion of subconsciousness. 

It will be remembered that the storehouse phase of 
the hypothesis of subconsciousness was one of the earliest 
to be emphasized, arising as this hypothesis did in the 
interests of pathological phenomena. The disregarded 
sensations, corresponding to the various anaesthesias; the 
lost memories, evidenced by the more or less systematized 
amnesias ; and lastly, the images assumed to be existent 
as controllers of the various automatisms ; — all seemed 
to need a secondary consciousness to contain them. If the 
reader has been good enough to follow the matter thus 
far, he will have noted abundant indications of a tend- 
ency, on normal as well as on pathological grounds, to 
assume the necessity of a subconscious storehouse. James 
speaks definitely of the subliminal region as existing 
" for the accumulation of vestiges of sensible experience," 

1 James, Varieties of Religious Experiencey chap, ix, x, especially pp. 
207, 209, 210, 236. 



344 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

and again as " the abode of everything that is latent and 
the reservoir of everything that passes unrecorded or un- 
observed," containing " such things as all our momen- 
tarily inactive memories." Sidis repeatedly expresses the 
same idea. Indeed the expression " tapping, the subcon- 
scious," a phrase used by all writers upon the topic, would 
be devoid of meaning did it not imply a belief that the 
region tapped was the depository of that which the so- 
called tapping brought to light. 

Against this view we must at once raise the objection, 
outlined in the discussion of crystal vision, that psychical 
processes are evanescent affairs that cannot under any 
circumstances be stored. To try to store a psychical pro- 
cess would be like trying to retain the flame of a candle 
after the candle itself had been consumed. All that one 
can possibly mean by such storage is that the cerebral 
modifications are still existent as latent dispositions, ready 
again to function under adequate provocation.^ 

One w^ould like to think that this is what the advo- 
cates of a secondary consciousness really believe, and that 
when they seem to state otherwise they are only speak- 
ing in figures. But such seems not to be the case. Des- 
soir's man, aroused from his reading by the mention of a 
familiar name, is entirely ignorant of the conversation 
that has gone on beside him. In hypnosis he can cor- 
rectly report it all.^ Janet's patient, Madame D., could 
recall no incident of an experience of being bitten by a 
doof and of beinof taken to Pasteur for treatment. All 
the events were recalled in hypnosis, and parts of them 
were muttered over in her sleep. Sidis's patient, Thomas 
. Hanna, recalled his forgotten past in his dreams and in 
hypnoidal states. And to each one of these writers the 

1 Cf. Fullerton, Metaphysics, p. 494. 
'^ Max Dessoir, Das Doppel-Ich. 1890. 



THE DETACHED SUBCOXSCIOUSNESS 345 

fact that forgotten experiences can be revived in dreams 
and in hypnosis is avowedly and explicitly made to con- 
stitute a proof, not only that the hypnotic, the dream, 
and the secondary consciousnesses are continuous and 
identical manifestations, but also that the revived expe- 
riences have been present continuously in the keeping of 
the secondary consciousness, their presence being now 
revealed because for the moment this consciousness has 
become dominant under the conditions of the dream or 
of the hypnosis.^ But by no legitimate process of scien- 
tific inference can one pass from the manifestations of 
dreams and hypnosis to the assumption that these same 
manifestations were the stored property of the secondary 
consciousness. All that one may legitimately infer is 
that the conditions for these manifestations were some- 
where retained, — conditions that now^ make possible the 
fuller conscious experience of the dream or the hypnosis. 
And these conditions, we must once more insist, are cere- 
bral and cerebral only. The dream and the hypnosis have 
introduced new conditions, and new conditions give new 
results. Because a strip of wood is at one moment satur- 
ated with steam to the point of pliability and at the next 
moment is bent, we have no warrant to assume from the 
second experience that it has been bent from the very start. 
Thomas Hanna's past was restored to him by a final 
successful attempt at reviving the forgotten and splicing 
it on to the present. In this connection it is instructive to 
know that this coalescing was materially assisted, not only 
by such normal excitants as stimulating conversation and 
the theatre, but also by such physical stimulants as beer, 
coffee, and cannabis indica. It requires no argument, it 
seems to me, to establish the supposition that it was neu- 

^ The logically minded reader will have scented here an excellent in- 
stance of reasoning in a circle. 



346 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

ral systems rather than severed consciousnesses that these 
excitants were efficacious in coalescing. Would any one 
think of claiming that the clearer and more inclusive 
memories of delirium and of drowning are to be ex- 
plained as due to the resurrection of patches of con- 
sciousness which long since floated away from the main 
current and now return to be fused with it? 

V. COIs^CLUSION. SOME LOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS. 

EXPLANATORY CONTINUITY VERSUS DESCRIPTIVE 
CONTINUITY 

As incomplete as it is, the examination of evidence 
must terminate at the point reached in the foregoing sec- 
tion. Did space permit, it would be desirable to scruti- 
nize much else that swells the pages of the writers that 
we have had under review. In particular^ might we with 
profit inquire into the concept of 'Happing/' together 
with the method of " distraction " which forms its prin- 
cipal condition in hysterical cases ; we might probe the 
psychological bases for those " denials " of the hysteric, 
— denials of sensation and of knowledge, — which a mo- 
ment later are contradicted by the telltale revelations of 
automatic writing or by hypnotic confession ; we might 
multiply instances of dire confusion between fact and 
inference, or point out the treacherous substitution of 
metaphors for sober descriptions, — metaphors which 
soon impose upon the users until the figure is taken for 
the fact, — or we might make merry over the promiscu- 
ous use of veritable Herbartian jargon ; for into one 
or more of these latter infelicities have nearly all writers 
fallen in the struggle to portray with becoming fitness 
the underground conscious life which their lively fancies 
have constructed. But all this we must forego, turning 
at once to the final word. And this final word must be 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 347 

devoted to the attempt to give in some measure a logical 
justification for what has preceded. 

The reason why the doctrine of subconsciousness has 
made such an effective appeal, both to its projectors and 
to its subsequent adherents, is, I suppose, because it fur- 
nishes a way of discoursing about certain unusual pheno- 
mena so as to make them descriptively continuous with 
usual phenomena of the same or similar type. By assum- 
ing that the writing of the automatic hand is presided 
over by a secondary consciousness, or by supposing that 
the insights of the genius — types of mental process so 
often arrived at only after toil and anguish — are fash- 
ioned in the workshop of subconsciousness, it becomes 
possible to describe many extraordinary phenomena while 
yet using the ordinary terminology and preserving the 
habitual attitude of mind. Thus without inconvenience 
the new and unusual is descriptively assimilated with the 
old and usual. Similarly, since a scene or event which 
can be recalled is normally one that was originally re- 
ceived consciously, it is assumed that the vision of the 
dream or of the crystal, whenever it reveals some scene or 
event which happened in the presence of the individual 
though apparently unnoticed by him, must also have been 
consciously received, though the receiving consciousness 
be regarded as detached from the dominant mass. 

These illustrations may be taken as typical of the kind 
of continuity which, it seems to me, has been too dili- 
gently courted. It is a descriptive continuity chiefly, — a 
continuity whose principal merit lies in its perpetuating, 
by easy use of analogy, the habitual and thus most comfort- 
able way of envisaging the phenomena involved. Over 
against this variety of continuity we have endeavored to 
place what may be called an explanatory continuity, the 
unremitting aim of which is to refrain from introducing 



348 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

new types of explanation in any series of similar pheno- 
mena, unless the series itself exhibit discontinuities suffi- 
ciently emphatic to demand a like discontinuity of inter- 
pretation. Thus we have endeavored to range automatic 
writings under the head of mechanically producible move- 
ments, and to view the inspirations of genius as identical 
in type with all processes that arrive in consciousness with- 
out direct external excitation. 

The attempt to maintain a descriptive continuity in the 
matters with which we are here concerned has led to a fash- 
ion of speaking about the subconscious as if it were a com- 
pletely demonstrated fact. And from speaking of it in this 
way, its advocates have come to regard it as unquestionably 
existent. But since the believers in the subconscious have 
then proceeded to use this for purposes of explanation, 
{e, g. of the phenomena of genius), the logical sin has 
been committed of endeavoring to explain the unknown 
by appeal to the unknowable. For a subconsciousness, by 
its very nature as submerged or detached, can never by 
any conceivable method be subjected to direct examination. 
If at any time it seems to be caught, it is no longer de- 
tached, but a part of the true consciousness of the moment. 
To use it, then, as an explanatory principle is to violate 
the rules of a scientifically sound method. 

But the term " subconsciousness " may refer, not to a 
demonstrated entity, but to an hypothesis submitted for 
the explanation and interpretation of certain observed 
facts. However, as explanatory hypothesis in the mental 
sciences, it comes into immediate competition with an 
already well-established presupposition to the effect that 
mental processes, both in their arising and in their con- 
tinuance, are somehow conditioned by cerebral activities 
and cerebral dispositions. And the problem confronting 
him who strives for explanatory continuity is whether he 



THE DETACHED SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 349 

shall assume a subconsciousness to account for various 
mental oddities which he encounters, or shall try to 
understand these latter by appealing to the same assump- 
tions of cerebral disorder or cerebral peculiarity which 
have proved satisfactory enough in such cases as aphasic 
utterances or maniacal ravings. The principle of explana- 
tory continuity demands that we push to its breaking 
point the psychophysical fashion of interpretation ; for 
this is the explanation in terms of the know^n, or, if not 
that, of the conceivably knowable ; whereas, as we have 
seen, the subconscious can be brought into the region of 
the known only by becoming something other than it- 
self. It is with the entire conviction that the dictates of 
a logically demanded explanatory continuity require the 
consistent and thorough-going extension of the psycho- 
physical j)oiiit of view that the arguments of this paper 
are submitted to the reader's consideration. 

A closing remark in the way of recommendation. Need 
is often felt for a compendious term to express the latent 
possibilities of mental life. To say of a recalcitrant word 
that it refuses to come from the subconscious would, in 
the meaning of many, be no more than to say that a la- 
tent possibility refused to actualize itself. And were the 
term ^' subconscious " not already overworked, it would be 
useful to reserve it for just this type of situation. " The 
subconscious " would then be '' the not yet conscious " 
But " subconsciousness " seems to serve its most useful 
function in the sense of "marginal consciousness," the 
" not so conscious " of Mr. Lang's happy phrase. And it 
is the continued and exclusive use of the term in this sense 
that the present writer most heartily recommends. That 
use of the term which shall make it equivalent to " other 
consciousness " it has been the purpose of this paper to 
discourage. 



XII 

THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 

Robert Sessions Woodwokth 

The most mysterious and important fact of mental life 
is perhaps the power possessed by ideas to produce bodily 
movements, and through them to take a hand in the course 
of physical nature. Empirical psychology, to which the 
present paper aims to contribute, need not balk at the 
mystery of the connection of physical and psychical events, 
and need offer no further excuse than a practical con- 
venience, amounting almost to necessity in the description 
of experimental results, for adopting interactionist terms, 
and frankly speaking of the mental cause of voluntary 
movement. The question to be attacked is : What exactly 
is the cause of such a movement? What is the ^^cue" 
that calls it out ? What is the immediate conscious ante- 
cedent of the innervation of the muscles ; or since there 
may be present in the complexity of a mental state various 
elements, some of which are possibly of no importance in 
the determination of the movement, what is the really 
effective factor in the consciousness immediately preceding 
a movement, that gives it its motor power ? 

A purely schematic psychology finds a ready answer 
to this question. Voluntary movement, it would say, is 
clearly movement that is foreseen and intended. There 
must therefore be in the mind an idea of the movement, 
and as such an idea could result only from previous ex- 
perience of the movement, it will consist of reproduced 
sensations, sensations originally produced by the move- 



352 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

nient. Therefore the cue of a voluntary movement con- 
sists of a sensorial image of the movement. Now among 
the sensations produced by a movement there are some, 
caused by the stimulation of the eye, ear, and other sense 
organs not located in the moving members, — such as are 
well called by James i^emote sensations, — which are not 
constant and invariable results of the movement. The eyes 
may be closed or turned away, the ears may be filled with 
the din of other things. The resident sensations on the 
contrary — those " muscular " and cutaneous sensations 
which originate in the moving member — are constant for 
a given movement. It is therefore these kinsesthetic sen- 
sations which give us direct and unequivocal knowledge 
of our movements, and it is the images of this sort of sen- 
sations which constitute the ideas of movement. To will 
a movement is to will the realization of such kinsesthetic 
ideas. The cue of a voluntary movement is a thought of 
how the movement is going to feel. The energizing of 
this kinsesthetic image by the exertion of an act of will 
may or may not be regarded as an additional necessity, 
according to the psychologist's general view regarding 
the essence of will. The idea of a movement must at any 
rate be there for the will to work on. The kinsesthetic 
image is the distinguishing mark, the determinant, of the 
coming movement. 

Besides the logical consistency of this scheme, it has 
the advantage — if this be a genuine advantage — of 
making the effect appear like the cause. The motor effect 
is prefigured in the consciousness that gives rise to it, and 
voluntary movement is thus made to seem a process of 
realization of ideas. It is "natural" to suppose that if 
any idea is to have the power to produce a movement, it 
should be the idea of the movement. Accordingly we find 
tliat voluntary movement is ordinarily interpreted accord- 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 353 

ing to this scheme. Some qualification is felt by most 
authors to be necessary, in the direction of diminishing 
the great importance assigned to kinsesthetic imagery. It 
is recognized that the thought of Jjjjfcdjemovement is 
going to feel cannot always be der^Wo" as present by 
introspection, and it is inferred that other ideas of a move- 
ment or of its results can be substituted, by association, 
for the kinsesthetic image; but the latter remains the 
typical and primitive cue to voluntary movement. 

Among recent writers, this scheme of the mechanism 
of voluntary movement is perhaps most fully presented 
by William MacDougall, from whom the following quota- 
tions are made : ^ — 

" The kind of idea that tends to issue most directly in action 
is the idea of a movement, the kinaesthetic idea." 

" The process of voluntarily combining a number of simpler 
movements or positions of parts of the body into a novel more 
complex movement or attitude is well illustrated in the learning 
of many games, especially well perhaps in learning golf and 
rowing. The beginner on the golf-links ' addresses ' the ball, 
coached by an expert. The expert commands a readjustment of 
this and that limb, of the trunk and head, until the proper 
attitude is struck, and it is the learner's task to combine the 
kinsesthetic impressions which this attitude yields to a single 
percept that can be produced on future occasions." 

" Frequent repetition of such a series of movements under 
similar conditions results in their becoming what is called 
secondarily automatic ; i. e. the person who frequently repeats 
such a series of movements, which, as we have seen, can only be 
acquired, and at first can only be executed, by direction of the 
attention to their kinaesthetic effects, becomes capable of execut- 
ing them while his attention is otherwise occupied." 

Few writers would go as far as MacDougall in the em- 
phasis of kinsesthetic imagery. But then few have at- 

1 Physiological Psychology, 1905, pp. 163, 151, 152. 



354 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

tempted so seriously to explain how ideas are connected 
with movement. He follows Munk and Bastian in regard- 
ing the motor area of the cortex as properly a sensory 
area, receiving kin aesthetic impressions. As this is, how- 
ever the area from which most of the motor nerve fibres 
issue fi'om the hemispheres, the almost inevitable conclu- 
sion was that kinsesthetic feelings are the last conscious 
process that can precede the motor innervation. Recent 
work in physiology tends to discredit the view of Munk 
and Bastian, and to show that the kinsesthetic area, though 
near the motor, is not identical with it. There is there- 
fore no physiological necessity that kinsesthetic imagery 
should intervene between any idea and its motor effects. 

Most authors content themselves with rather general 
statements concerning this matter. Wundt's formula is 
that voluntary movement, considered as a phenomenon of 
consciousness, " consists simply in the apperception of an 
idea of movement." ^ For Miinsterberg an idea of the 
result to be gained is an essential factor in voluntary ac- 
tion, but the anticipating idea need by no means contain 
the same elements as the actual perception of the accom- 
plished result. Abbreviating symbols, images from other 
senses, conceptual determinations can be substituted, pro- 
vided only the same objective change is thought of .^ 

James, as is commonly the case, gives a description 
more faithful to the sum total of facts than other authors, 
and it is difficult to do justice to his teaching in a brief 
quotation like the following : ^ — 

" There can he no doubt lohatever that the mental cue may he 
either an image of the resident or of the remote hind. Although, 

^ Grundziige der Physiologischen Psychologic, 5th ed., 1903, vol. ii, p. 307. 
2 Grundziige der Psychologic, vol. i, p. 365. 

« Principles of Psychology, 1890, vol. ii, pp. 518, 519. See further quota- 
tions iu Dr. Burnett's paper, following this. 



THE CAUSE OF A YOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 355 

at the outset of our learning a movement, it would seem tliat 
the resident feelings must come strongly before consciousness, 
later this need not be the case. The rule, in fact, would seem 
to be that they tend to lapse more and more from conscious- 
ness, and that the more practiced we become in a movement, 
the more ' remote ' do the ideas become which form its mental 
cue. What we are interested, in is what sticks in our conscious- 
ness ; everything else we get rid of as quickly as we can. Our 
resident feelings of movement have no substantive interest for 
us at all, as a rule. What interest us are the ends which the 
movement is to attain." 

We find then in current psychological literature a broader 
and a narrower conception of the mechanism of voluntary 
movement. According to the narrower view, the mental 
content directly concerned in causing the movement is 
always a kinsesthetic image, a picture in " muscular " and 
perhaps also tactile terms of how the movement is going 
to feel ; other ideas operate to cause movement only by 
first, through association, calling up the kinsesthetic image. 
The only qualification made is that the kinsesthetic imagery 
need not always come to the focus of consciousness, and 
that, with frequent repetition, it may decrease in obtru- 
siveness so as finally to be scarcely detectable by intro- 
spection. The broader conception is that any sort of 
image of the results to be gained by the movement may 
become associated with the movement and constitute its 
only cue. The kinsesthetic image is of special importance 
in the process of learning a new movement, or, more gen- 
erally, whenever a movement is difficult of execution. 
Yet it has no special prerogative ; any sort of image of 
the results of a movement may be as directly associated 
with movement, and have as inherent motive power, as 
the kinsesthetic idea. 

The experimental observations which I am about to 
report have convinced me that neither the narrower nor 



356 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the broader of these conceptions is correct. The narrower 
conception is the more glaringly false : neither in the 
execution of a familiar movement nor in learning a new 
one is the kinsesthetic image of that movement entitled to 
rank as the sole direct excitant of the motor activity. 
But I am inclined to go further and deny that any form 
of sensorial image of the movement or of its outcome 
need be present in consciousness in the moment just pre- 
ceding the innervation. Imagery, kinsesthetic, tactile, vis- 
ual, auditory, may or may not be present at the launching 
of a voluntary movement; when present, it seems, in 
many persons, at least, to be incidental rather than essen- 
tial to the process. 

The material on which these statements are based con- 
sists of two sets of experiments, one on practice in gaining 
voluntary conti'ol of an unfamiliar movement, and one on 
the execution of a familiar movement. The practice experi- 
ments have already been reported, but will be referred to 
briefly below. The observations on the willing of familiar 
movements are purely introspective in nature, a fact which 
I regret as I recognize the rather treacherous character of 
unchecked introspection. Some of the pitfalls have prob- 
ably been avoided by making the introspections under 
simple conditions, recording them at once, and having a 
considerable number of observers. 

These experiments were simple in character. The " sub- 
ject " was required to make a given movement with some 
preliminary hesitation, and to note the condition of mind 
that preceded the movement. He was to note particularly 
what imagery appeared ; and in case of motor images he 
was asked to compare them with the sensations resulting 
immediately afterwards from the actual movement. Care 
was then taken to avoid as far as possible any confusion 
of centrally produced images with sensations of peripheral 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 357 

origin. The movement was required to be hesitant, in the 
belief that imagery would thus be more apt to crop up ; 
prompt movements were, however, also made, and were, 
in fact, preceded by less imagery than the hesitant move- 
ment. Some of the movements made, such as opening the 
mouth, wagging the jaw, winking, opening the closed eyes, 
flexing or separating the fingers, and flexing the foot, were 
" free " in the sense that motion was not communicated to 
any external object ; in other cases, some instrument, such 
as scissors, forceps, or the dynamometer, was manipulated. 
Sometimes a choice of movements was allowed : the hand 
was to touch any part of the body ; or it was to touch 
any object in the seen foreground ; or the fingers were 
to be either flexed or extended ; or a reaction to a sound 
was to be made with either hand or either foot. 

The subjects were young adults, two women, and eleven 
men. All but one man and one woman were persons of 
considerable psychological training; the two exceptions 
were known, from previous tests, to possess good powers 
of introspective observation. 

As might be expected, the subjects differed greatly 
in the sort and amount of imagery which they experi- 
enced. Some had motor images in advance of most of 
the movements tried ; others had none. Some commonly 
had visual images, some never. Some had auditory images 
in preparation for speaking a word, some motor, some 
visual in addition to motor. Touch, pain, temperature, 
and semi-circular canal imagery cropped out occasionally. 
Verbal imagery, naming the act to be performed or the 
object to be moved or touched, was not infrequent. Some 
subjects did not anticipate movements in imagery of any 
sort, but attended to sensations of the initial position 
and of the beginning of the movement. Some subjects, 
in preparing to make a movement, actually made a start 



358 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

or set the muscles in such a way as to be all ready to 
move, and the sensations of these incipient movements 
and preparatory adjustments were all they could detect 
of a sensorial nature prior to the movement. Scarcely 
any person had the same sort of imagery for all the 
movements studied. It may be well to introduce in out- 
line the observations of the individual subjects ; they 
are males except when it is otherwise stated. 

1. Psj^chologist, who habitually has visual, auditory, and 
kinsesthetic imagery : No visual imagery appeared during these 
experiments ; kinsesthetic imagery was the rule, and it constituted 
a fairly accurate and adequate premonition of the sensations that 
resulted a moment later from the actual movement. This sub- 
ject has apparently more adequate motor imagery than any of 
the other persons examined; it was not completely adequate, 
however, as often the image represented a slow smooth move- 
ment, while the actual movement that ensued felt sudden or 
jerky ; and there were other divergencies. In mentally prepar- 
ing to squeeze a dynamometer, he had no kinsesthetic imagery, 
but pictured the cutaneous pressure and pain that would re- 
sult from the movement. In reaction experiments, in which he 
has had much practice, he had little imagery of any sort. 

2. Psychologist, with imagery of all kinds ; the visual, audi- 
tory, and kinsesthetic being about on a par : No visual imagery 
came up spontaneously, even in manipulating external objects. 
Motor imagery apj^eared in most cases, but was usually vague 
and different from the actual sensations of the ensuing move- 
ment. It was often a feeling of the preliminary adjustment for 
the movement rather than of the movement in progress or of 
the final position, and may therefore have been a sense percep- 
tion rather than a representation. In the case of a rather unfa- 
miliar movement, however, there appeared a clear motor image, 
" even clearer than the actual sensations of the movement," and 
fairly adequat(^. In one or two cases there was no imagery that 
could be d<?t('cted. 

3. Psychologist ; his strongest imagery is visual, then, in or- 
der, auditory, gustatory and olfactory, kinsesthetic : Visual 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 359 

imagery was more common than motor, sometimes there was 
neither. In some eases where visual imagery might seem a iwi- 
ori to be most likely to occur, — as in manipulating a tool, — 
only kinaesthetic images were present; and in other cases, 
such as wagging the jaw, in which kinsesthetic imagery would 
be expected rather than visual, it was the visual that actually 
appeared. 

4. Psychologist, strongly visual in type, in speech visual and 
kinaesthetic : Almost every sort of movement was presaged by 
visual imagery of the result of the movement. Even in wrestling, 
in which he is expert, he anticipates each move by a visual pic- 
ture of the position into which he means to land his antagonist ; 
sometimes a series of successive moves is thus visually pictured 
out beforehand. Similarly, in tennis, each stroke at the ball is 
preceded by a visual picture of the attempt of the opponent to 
return it. There was no motor imagery that could be certainly 
differentiated from sensations of the initial position and adjust- 
ment. 

5. Woman, of no psychological training, with good visual and 
auditory imagery : There was no clear kinaesthetic imagery, ex- 
cept when a special effort was made to get it, and then the ac- 
tual movement felt quite different froui the anticipatory image. 
Frequently the sensations of the initial position or of the pre- 
liminary adjustment of the member, or of the external object to 
be moved were present instead of images. Visual imagery was 
sometimes present in preparing for a movement that was to 
affect external objects. Auditory imagery was the preliminary 
to speaking or singing. Verbal imagery, the name of the mem- 
ber or object concerned, or some statement such as " I am going 
to move it from here to there," was common. In many cases no 
imagery at all was detected. 

6. Woman, psychologist, having in general very little imagery 
of any sort : Kinaesthetic imagery appeared in preparing to grip 
the dynamometer, but in no other instance. There was occasion- 
ally a visual image of the result ; once there were tactile and 
temperature images. Usually little could be detected as prelim- 
inary to the movement except sensations of the present condi- 
tion, a tingling or a tension in the part to be moved. 



360 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

7. Psychologist, of pronounced visual type : On receiving 
directions to make a certain movement, he had a visual image 
of the movement or of some result ; if the movement was held 
back for a little, this imagery cleared away and did not reappear 
just before actual movement. Once a cutaneous or kinaesthetic 
image appeared ; sometimes no image at all appeared ; some- 
times sensations were all that could be detected. 

8. Psychologist, possessing visual, kinaesthetic, auditory, and 
tactile imagery ; the visual being most pronounced : Kinaes- 
thetic imagery rarely appeared in anticipation of the movement, 
and when there it only partially resembled the feeling of the 
actual movement. A sort of spatial imagery, neither definitely 
visual nor definitely motor, was present in preparing to move a 
certain member or object. Verbal imagery occurred. Sensations 
of the preliminary condition were prominent, 

9. Laboratory mechanic, with some experience as subject in 
psychological experiments, possessing visual, motor, and some 
auditory imagery: Visual imagery occurred at times; for 
instance, as he was hesitating about looking at a house a vivid 
image of the house appeared. Verbal imagery was somewhat 
more frequent ; tactile and ^temperature imagery appeared in 
one experiment. In most cases, all that was noted was the sen- 
sations of the initial position or of a slight premature commence- 
ment of the movement. 

10. Teacher of philosophy, with psychological training; of 
the auditory-motor type of imagery : Motor imagery occurred 
but rarely; visual somewhat more frequently. There was little 
of any kind throughout the experiments. Sensations from the 
part to be moved were the prominent content of consciousness. 

11. Student of philosophy and psychology : He found it 
possible to picture the intended movement in either visual or 
kinaesthetic terms, rather more successfully in visual than in 
kinaesthetic, since the sensations of the movement when it was 
made were, to the subject, rather surprisingly different from the 
kinaesthetic anticipation. Except by effort directed to this end, 
he had neither visual nor kinaesthetic imagery of the movement 
about to be produced. 

12. The writer, having little but auditory and a sort of spatial 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 361 

imagery, which latter is neither distinctly visual nor distinctly 
motor : No kinsesthetic imagery of movements about to be made 
occurred except as the result of effort, and then it did not 
resemble the sensations of the movement when made ; nor any 
visual except in one case ; spatial more frequent ; auditory pre- 
sent whenever there was any association between the movement 
and the production of sound. In preparing to make a movement, 
the subject's attention is directed to the sensations now coming 
from the part to be affected. 

13. Psychologist, possessing little imagery, the auditory be- 
ing most prominent: Imagery of any kind scarcely occurred at 
all except as the result of effort to get it. Kinsesthetic imagery 
so got was not like the sensations of the actual movement. The 
sensations of the preliminary condition of affairs were some- 
times the object of attention. 

My observations are not adapted to statistical treat- 
ment. The study does not purport to be a census, but a 
rough survey of the sorts of facts that occur. The differ- 
ent subjects did not make equal numbers of observations, 
nor was care taken to have the movements chosen a fair 
sample, statistically, of the voluntary motor activity of 
daily life. Hence no great importance is attached to the 
following figures : — 

Out of 128 single introspections of the conscious pre- 
liminaries of voluntary movement : — 
27 gave kinsesthetic imagery. 
27 " visual imagery. 
17 " imagery of other kinds. 
30 " only peripheral sensations. 
27 " an absence from the " field of attention " 
of all sensorial elements whether external impres- 
sions or images. 
Some sort of imagery therefore occurred in 71 cases, 

or 55%. 
Kinaesthetic imagery occurred in 27 cases, or 21 %. 



362 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

The kinsesthetic imagery was adequate in 11 cases, 
or 9 %. 
Nearly one half of the cases showed no imagery; the 
kinsesthetic image was observed in only one fifth of the 
cases, and only half of these showed adequate images, 
i. e. images which were fair representations of the actual 
sensations of the movement. The inadequacy of the kin- 
gesthetic image often consisted in insufficiency, as it did 
not represent the movement with any completeness ; fre- 
quently, too, the image represented a much slower or 
smoother movement than the one which actually followed ; 
occasionally the difference was the opposite of this. Quite 
generally, the sensations of the actual movement, when 
attended to, surprised the subject by their contrast with 
the anticipatory image. Familiar movements, such as 
opening the mouth, winking the eyes, or closing the fist^ 
do not feel by any means as one imagines they will feel. 

The adequacy or inadequacy of images is a point of 
importance in judging how much of a real causal func- 
tion the image has in the production of movement. It 
has of course long been recognized that we have no im- 
age which conveys to our intelligence any conception of 
the neural and muscular mechanism by which the move- 
ment is executed ; but it may be replied to this that the 
sensations of a movement could not be expected to teach 
anatomy ; so long as they give an unequivocal sign of 
the movement, they furnish all that is required for re- 
cognizing it; and so long as the central reproduction of 
such sensations — the kinsesthetic image — gives an un- 
equivocal sign of a given movement, it does enough to 
determine the movement. But when it is found that this 
kinsesthetic sign is neither unequivocal nor accurate, that 
it pictures a slow movement when a rapid one results, and 
in general tliat its contrast with the peripheral sensations 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 363 

of actual movement is more in evidence than its resem- 
blance to them, grave doubt begins to be thrown upon 
the view that the kinsesthetic image is the sufficient sign 
and cue of the movement. If we plan to make a certain 
movement, picturing to ourselves how it is going to feel, 
and then make it, we usually find that it does not feel as 
we had anticipated, and yet we know that we have made 
the movement we intended. Such a state of affairs would 
be impossible if the intention to make a certain movement 
were equivalent to the intention to make a movement 
which should feel like a certain kinsesthetic image. The 
kinsesthetic imagery of many and probably of nearly all 
persons is incapable of the minute gradations which those 
persons can introduce into their voluntary movements.^ 
Adding to this the yet more significant fact that in most 
cases no kinsesthetic imagery is detected, I think it safe to 
conclude that the kinsesthetic image is not the exclusive, 
nor even the typical cue to voluntary movement. To in- 
sist that such an image " must be " there, although not 
observed, is mere schematism. 

Leaving aside for the present the still more striking 
facts, derived from the introspective observations, that no 
imagery of any sort appears in a large share of the cases, 
and that where it does appear it is quite inadequate as 
a representation of the movement and of its results, I wish 
first to follow up the kinsesthetic image and adduce sev- 
eral further considerations that go to show its relative 
unimportance in the initiation of voluntary movement. 

A distinction which needs making, and which when 
made clears matters up a good deal, is that between kin- 
sesthetic images of movements about to be made and 
kinsesthetic and other resident sensations of the member 

1 Cf . Kiilpe's observations on the general lack of fine differences in im- 
agery, Grundriss der P^chologie, 1893, pp. 186, 187. 



364 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

that is about to move. Introspectively it is hard, at least 
at first, to distinguish between them. Some of my sub- 
jects noticed feehngs of the member that was to move, 
feehngs regarding which they could not be sure whether 
they were of central or peripheral origin. In some in- 
stances slight preliminary movements of the part actually 
occurred, as I observed by closely watching the subject. 
Other persons, on the other hand, were clear in their own 
minds that they were attending to actual sensations of 
the initial position or preliminary adjustment of the 
member. 

The dif&culty of distinguishing kinsesthetic images and 
sensations furnishes a clue to the explanation of the fact 
which is sometimes brought forward as a definite proof 
of the close relation between the idea of a movement, as 
cause, and the execution of the movement, as effect. It 
is said that we cannot picture a bodily movement without 
experiencing a strong impulse to make that movement. 
The following is a partial explanation. The introspective 
results have shown that it is perfectly possible to think of 
a movement — to identify it in thought — without expe- 
riencing any kinsesthetic image of it. Suppose that in 
such a case the effort is made to picture out how the 
movement will feel ; the natural tendency is, since the 
movement is at our command, to make it and to find out 
how it feels. When the statement is made, " I cannot 
picture to myself the movement of my arm without mak- 
ing the movement, or at least starting to make it," the 
fact may be not the motor potency of the picture of the 
movement, but the inability to get the picture without 
making the movement. Some persons do, without doubt, 
have good powers of kinaesthetic imagery, but most per- 
sons seem to be rather deficient in it as compared with 
visual imagery : they scarcely need it, since they can al- 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 365 

ways in simple cases supply the lack by making the actual 
movements. Most so-called motor imagery^ as I am con- 
vinced by questioning those who report experiencing it, 
is spurious, consisting in reality of peripherally excited 
sensations of movement ; and its much-vaunted motor 
efficacy I believe to be nothing more than the movements 
produced in the effort to get the feeling of a movement, 
by persons who are unable to arouse the image. In that 
close association between the feeling of a movement and 
the movement itself, which has been so much emphasized 
in arguing for the motor efficacy of kinsesthetic imagery, 
the movement is the cause and the supposed image the 
effect. The cause of the movement must be sought in 
quite a different quarter. 

The most obdurate schematist would, I think, be con- 
vinced by gathering observations from a number of 
individuals that kinsesthetic images were not the invari- 
able antecedent of voluntary movement, nor even the 
usual antecedent. He might, however, still be disposed to 
insist on their importance in the process of learning a 
new movement. The kinsesthetic image might be the nat- 
ural antecedent of the movement, with which any other 
idea which was to issue in movement must first become 
associated. As the association became firmly fixed, and 
as attention was more and more directed to the remote 
consequences of the movement, the intermediate link in 
the chain of association might very probably cease to 
come clearly to consciousness. To determine whether the 
kinsesthetic image has this primordial importance, it is 
necessary to conduct experiments on the acquisition of 
control over unfamiliar movements. 

The most important work in this direction is that of 
Bair/ who taught several persons to move their ears at 

* Psychological Review, 1901, vol. viii, p. 474. 



366 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

will ; he recorded the movements by suitable apparatus, 
and at the same time determined as far as possible by what 
process the voluntary control was established. One im- 
portant fact which he discovered was that familiarity with 
the feeling of the ear in motion, afforded by repeatedly 
exciting by electricity the muscle that moves it, was not 
of itself sufficient to give a person the power to make the 
movement at will. This familiarity is just what would be 
required according to the scheme outlined by MacDou- 
gall. It is true that the electrical excitation of the muscle 
was of some help, since persons who had this preliminary 
passive exercise learned the movement a little more rapidly 
than other persons ; but this difference is sufficiently ex- 
plained by the greater certainty with which such persons 
would recognize the right movement when by good luck 
they made it themselves in the midst of their unsuccess- 
ful attempts. A prompt recognition of success is a prime 
necessity in learning any performance. Bair also found 
that in the first stage of control over the ear movements 
other muscles contracted along with the muscle of the 
ear. Further practice was necessary to isolate the move- 
ment of the ear from the other movements with which it was 
associated. Success was not to be attained by voluntarily 
inhibiting the other movements ; the thought of inhibit- 
ing them but caused them to occur with all the greater 
strength ; what succeeded was the concentrating of atten- 
tion on the ear, and dropping the other movements out of 
thought. The important point for our present purpose is 
that motion of a part followed thought of that part, — not 
necessarily thought of the movement of the part, since 
thought of preventing its motion was equally effective. 

In similar though less extensive experiments which I 
made on myself, and which have already been reported,^ 

1 Le Mouvementy 1903, p. 330. 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 367 

the effect was made to isolate the extension and flexion of 
the great toe from that of the other toes. The establish- 
ment of complete voluntary control was a very gradual 
process. The first successes came by accident, as far as 
consciousness could tell. As in Bair's experiments, at- 
tention had to be concentrated on the one toe that was 
to be moved, since the thought of the others and the 
attem^pt to prevent their motion was a good means of 
insuring that they did move. I had in mind specially the 
question of kinsesthetic imagery, but was unable to detect 
any in the first successes or at all. Attention was directed 
to the toe itself, to the sensations arising in it, rather 
than to any mental image of its movement. It seems to 
be true that attention to the sensations coming from any 
member is one form of the cue of voluntary movement 
of the member. I infer from the results of Bair's, com- 
bined with my own, that even in first getting control over 
a particular movement, at least in the case of adults, the 
kinsesthetic image of that movement is neither a necessary 
nor a sufficient condition. 

Observations on the imagery of young children first 
learning to control their movements are of necessity in- 
direct, yet some suggestive facts have been established. 
The child is equipped by nature with a large store of 
definite reactions, defensive, locomotory, nutritional, 
vocal, ocular, facial, as well as with what seem more 
random movements of the arms and legs. These reac- 
tions necessarily occur first without the child's fore- 
knowledge or intention; but having thus occurred they 
enter into the developing system of his thoughts and 
desires; they become associated with other things; and 
this is the process by which the child acquires control 
of his motor inheritance. The question is whether the 
first associations are formed between the movements and 



368 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

the feelings and images of them, whether the child's first 
desire for a movement is the desire to feel it again. 

Kirkpatrick^ reports an instructive instance of a little 
girl ayIio had not started to walk at the age of seventeen 
months. One day a pair of cuffs which her father had 
laid on a table interested her, and, creeping to the table, 
she pulled herself up by one of its legs, reached for a 
cuff with one hand, and put it on her other wrist, thus 
standing alone for the first time. Next she put on the 
other cuff, and after gazing for a moment in admiration 
at her new ornaments, walked across the room with an 
expression of great satisfaction on her face. When the 
cuffs were taken from her she would walk no more; to 
facilitate her progress, therefore, a pair was given her ; 
she required them only a couple of days, at the end of 
which she walked at will. Trettien ^ has collected a num- 
ber of similar instances in which children began to walk 
suddenly, making their first steps while their attention 
was completely absorbed by some interesting object, and 
entirely losing their balance if their attention was at- 
tracted to what they were doing. It must of course be 
admitted that these cases are exceptional in the sudden- 
ness with which the walking instinct blossomed out; 
when the process is more gradual, the child being per- 
haps worried along by his elders, it is hard to say what 
may be in his mind. But it is reasonably clear from the 
well-observed case of Kirkpatrick that kinsesthetic im- 
agery is not always the first thing to be associated with 
movement. The little girl did not attend to the sensa- 
tions of her movements ; she was not engaged, as Mac- 
Dougall puts it, in obtaining a unified percept of the com- 
plex kinsesthetic sensations which the walking aroused ; 

^ Psychological Review, 1899, vol. vi, p. 275. - 

^ American Journal of Psychology, 1900, vol. xi, p. 1. 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 369 

her desire was not centred on feeling those sensations 
again ; she did not first associate the movement with the 
thought of how it felt ; she associated it with those cuffs. 
They were the original cue. 

The baby kicking and throwing his arms around appar- 
ently derives pleasure from so doing, and it is hard to 
see what experience he can derive from the action except 
the resident sensations. But with the first appearance of 
definite control the centre of his interest passes elsewhere. 
About the first movement that he learns to perform at 
will is putting his hand in his mouth. Dexter observed 
carefully the progress made by an infant in acquiring 
control over this coordination. As he was throwing his 
arms in all directions, he accidentally put his hand into his 
mouth ; he seemed to be pleased and to try to do it again. 
The next day he succeeded three times, and in a fort- 
night he had the movement completely under control. 
Now it is clearly impossible to suppose that the kinses- 
thetic impressions coming from the arm when it took the 
path to the mouth were so different from those caused by 
its other movements, and so much more pleasurable, as to 
be the cause for the selection of this particular movement. 
It was the sensations at the mouth that gave pleasure, 
and which, rather than the kinsesthetic sensations, became 
associated with the motor innervation. In general it is 
probably safe to say that when any particular one among 
the child's random movements of his arms and hands 
becomes of such interest as to be selected and reduced to 
voluntary control, the interest has arisen, not from any 
peculiarity in the kinsesthetic sensations of that movement, 
but from some other result. It is this result which attracts 
the child's attention and becomes the cue for the produc- 
tion of the movement. 

1 Educational Review, 1902, vol, xxiii, p. 81. 



370 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

In the case of certain movements, there is what amounts 
to a demonstration, derived from brain physiology, that 
they result and always have resulted from visual or audi- 
tory and not from kinsesthetic cues. The clearest case is 
the movements of the eyeballs. These can be elicited, in 
experiments on the brains of monkeys, by excitation of 
three distinct portions of the cortex, the motor area, the 
visual area, and the auditory area. The visual area is 
that which is connected with the retina by sensory nerve 
fibres, and the destruction of which causes blindness in 
man or animals. The auditory area is connected with the 
ear, and its destruction causes deafness. Specialization 
exists within the visual area, each part of the field of view 
being represented in a particular spot within the area ; 
and stimulation of this spot causes the eyes to turn toward 
the corresponding part of the field of view so as to bring 
it into distinct vision. This motor action of the visual 
cortex is thus that by which we turn our eyes to look 
at any object seen in indirect vision. It might still be 
thought that the visual area acted on the eye muscles 
through the medium of a kinsesthetic area and of the motor 
area, were it not for abundant evidence, both anatomical 
and physiological, that the eye movements elicited by 
stimulation of the visual cortex are quite independent of 
the motor area. Anatomically, it is known that descend- 
ing fibres connect the visual area with the anterior cor- 
pora quadrigemina, the coordinating centre for eye move- 
ments, and physiologically it is found that^ the same 
movements of the eye are aroused by stimulation of the 
visual area, even after the motor area has been destroyed. 
Thus it is certain that turning the eyes to look at any- 
thing is the direct result of visual stimulation, and not, 

^ E. A. Sohiifer, International Monthly Journal of Anatomy and Physiology^ 
1888, vol. V ; Text Book of Physiology, 1900, vol. ii, p. 751. 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 371 

even at first, dependent upon a kinsesthetie intermediary. 
The same line of reasoning applies equally to the turning 
of the eyes towards a source of sound, since it is found 
that this movement occurs on stimulation of the auditory 
area, even after the motor and visual areas are destroyed. 
The turning of the head, too, which is apt to accompany 
turning of the eyes in response to either visual or auditory 
stimulation, results directly from the excitation of the 
visual and auditory areas, without the motor area, and 
without the possibility of a kinsesthetie intermediary. 

Control over the vocal organs is probably acquired 
normally through hearing. No such close physiological 
reasoning is possible here as in relation to eye move- 
ments, but we have at least the fact that a child under- 
stands spoken words before he begins to talk, showing 
that speech is primarily an auditory matter with him; 
and we have the further fact that he readily imitates 
spoken sounds, showing a close and organized connection 
between the " word - hearing centre" and the motor 
speech centre. 

Having thus attempted to show that in special cases 
the voluntary control over bodily movements is not ac- 
quired by means of kinsesthetie imagery, I wish now to 
bring forward two general considerations of great im- 
portance in deciding on the role played by the kinsesthetie 
image both in the acquisition and in the familiar execu- 
tion of voluntary movement. 

The first consideration harks back to the distinction 
drawn between the kinsesthetie sensations representing 
the present condition of the member about to be moved, 
and the kinsesthetie image of the impending movement. 
The latter is probably of very little functional importance, 
but the kinsesthetie sensations are extremely important. 
Their importance is shown by the results that follow 



372 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

when they are lacking. Loss of coordination and some- 
times even inability or unwillingness to move the anaes- 
thetic member are the results. This is abundantly shown 
both by physiological experiments on animals and by 
observations on pathological loss of sensation in man. 
The sensations of the initial position of a member are an 
essential factor in determining its movements, since the 
movement will differ according to the initial position. 
The same sensory stimulus that arouses flexion when a 
limb is extended may arouse extension when it is flexed. 
The sensations coming in from the member as it moves 
are also an essential factor in coordinating the further 
progress of the movement. If they are lacking the 
result may be a wavering motion, as seen in monkeys 
whose limbs have been rendered anaesthetic by cutting 
the sensory nerve fibres ; ^ an excess of motion as seen in 
locomotor ataxia;^ or a deficiency of motion, a premature 
stopping, as seen in hysterical anaesthesia.^ The kinaes- 
•thetic sensations on which the coordination of movement 
so largely depends need not indeed come to the focus of 
attention ; their effects are in large measure reflex, yet 
they may become the object of attention in deliberately 
preparing for a movement. 

The resident sensations of a member at rest in any po- 
sition are a factor in determining its movement out of 
that position ; the kinaesthetic sensations of a member in 
motion are a factor in determining the further progress 
or the arrest of the movement. In walking, the sensa- 

1 Sherrington, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 1895, vol. Ivii, 
p. 48L 

2 H. E. ll^vrng, A rcJiiv fiir experimentelle Pathologie und Pharmakologicj 
1897, vol. xxxviii, p. 278. 

2 Gley and Marillior, Revue philosophique, 1887, vol. xxiii, p. 441. Cremer, 
Ueher das Schdtzen von Disianzen bei Bewegung von Arm und Handy Wiirz- 
burg, 1887, p. 33. 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 373 

tions of the right leg's step are a factor in eHciting the 
ensuing step of the left leg ; in alternately flexing and 
extending the forearm, the sensations of flexion are a 
factor in calling out the ensuing extension, and the sensa- 
tions of extension help to elicit the following flexion ; in 
breathing, the sensations of inspiration cause expiration 
and the sensations of expiration cause inspiration. Why 
should not the corresponding images have the same motor 
tendencies ? But this is just the opposite of what is 
claimed for them. The image of flexion is supposed to 
cause flexion, not extension. The image of an inspiratory 
movement is supposed to cause an inspiratory movement, 
whereas the corresponding sensation causes expiration. 
The image of a step with the right foot is supposed to 
cause that foot to step, instead of the other. The image 
of the beginning of a movement is supposed to cause the 
beginning of the movement, instead of causing a later 
stage in the movement, as the corresponding sensation 
would do ; and the image of the later part of the move- 
ment is supposed to cause that later part to occur, 
whereas the corresponding sensation w^ould cause the 

4 movement to stop. It is impossible that the sensation of 
any movement or part of a movement should act directly 
to cause a repetition of the same movement or part ; for 
no such repetition can occur until another and a con- 
trary movement has intervened. 

. It is certainly unreasonable to assign to an image a 
motor effect contrary to that exerted by the sensation 
which it reproduces or represents. As the sensation of 
a given movement can never have been the motor cue to a 
repetition of that movement, but always to some other 
movement, it is hardly conceivable that the image should 
have the power assigned to it of calling out the move- 
ment which it represents. If, on the other hand, the im- 



374 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

age lias a motor tendency like that of the corresponding 
sensation, it is of no consequence whatever ; for since the 
image would represent the member in a situation differ- 
ing from its actual one and would call for a movement out 
of that unreal situation, it would be calling for a move- 
ment that could not be executed at the moment. My con- 
clusion is that genuine motor imagery, so far as it occurs, 
has very little motor effect. 

Although the preceding facts and considerations, if 
they are accepted as valid, dispose effectually of the 
scheme which assigns an essential role to the kinsesthetic 
image in the initiation of voluntary movement, yet in 
order to state the case completely, there is still another 
general fact that must be adduced. The fact is some- 
what over-stated by saying that there is no such thing as 
voluntary bodily movement. The emphasis is on bodily. 
There is such a thing, but it is a rarity, seldom occurring 
in practical life. Instances of it are found in " free " 
gymnastics, in the tricks children love to play with their 
fingers, and in such movements as psychologists make 
when they are exemplifying to themselves the process of 
voluntary movement. In these cases the bodily move- 
ment is willed for its own sake ; there is no resulting mo- 
tion of external things. Even here the interest seldom 
lies in the resident sensations, it is more apt to be cen- 
tred in the visual appearance of the movement. But the 
great majority of purposive movements are executed for 
the sake of some effect they produce beyond the mere 
movement. Sometimes the desired effect is the removal* 
of an unpleasant cutaneous sensation or the production 
of some other intra-bodily change, but most often it is 
the movement of an external object, or of the body in re- 
lation to an external object. It would be much truer to 
speak of our voluntary movement of physical objects than 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 375 

to speak of voluntary bodily movements. If I wish to cut 
a stick, my intention is not that of making certain back 
and forth movements of my arm, while simultaneously 
holding the fingers pressed tightly towards each other; 
my intention is to cut that stick. When I voluntarily 
start to walk, my intention is not that of alternately 
moving my legs in a certain manner ; my will is directed 
towards reaching a certain place. I am unable to describe 
with any approach to accuracy what movements my arms 
or legs are to make ; but I am able to state exactly what 
result I design to accomplish. It may conceivably be 
different with the infant, but this is not probable. It is 
not likely that he first acquires control over his move- 
ments, which he then applies in manipulating objects, so 
that at a certain stage of his development he would know 
what movements of his limbs he wished to execute, but not 
what changes in objects were to be accomphshed thereby. 
•His movements become organized with reference to situa- 
tions and to definite things as the focal points of situa- 
tions ; instinct itself, with which he starts, is so organized ; 
his motor development is a process of getting control 
of the things around him rather than of learning and ap- 
plying his own possibilities in the way of bodily move- 
ment. It would be impossible to account for his motor 
performances without reference to the size, shape, weight, 
distance and direction of the things he deals with. Both 
by instinct and by the force of experience, his movements 
are coordinated with reference to these properties of phy- 
► sical objects. It is not so much a " supply of ideas of the 
various movements that are possible " as a knowledge of 
the various effects that can be produced, that is " the 
first prerequisite of the voluntary life." ^ 

The kinsesthetic image must be given up, as the special 

^ Cf . James, Principles of Psychology ^ vol. ii, p. 488. 



376 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

and invariable, or the usual, or even as a possible cue of 
volnntarj movement. That it is not the invariable or 
usual cue is simply the observed fact ; that it can hardly 
provide either the direct causal antecedent of the repre- 
sented movement or the means by which movements are 
identified and associated, is indicated in the first case by 
the contradiction which would ensue between the function 
of the image and that of the kinsesthetic sensations of 
which it is the image ; and in the second case by our 
fundamental tendency to perceive and conceive move- 
ments as changes affected in things rather than as mere 
motions of the body and limbs. 

So far, our discussion would seem to land us in some 
such position as the following. Not indeed the kinaes- 
thetic image, but some image representing the result of a 
movement, is the mental cue of voluntary action. The 
image may be visual, auditory, tactile, or belong to any 
sense whatever ; so long as it represents the end to be 
reached, it may come, by associations formed during the 
production of the movement, to have the power of putting 
the movement into play. 

Unfortunately, the facts reported near the beginning 
of this paper drive us at once from this second position. 
In a large proportion of cases, no image whatever could 
be detected by my subjects as occurring in anticipation 
of a movement. Individuals differ, some having visual 
images frequently, if not regularly, as they are preparing 
to move, and some seldom having images of any kind. 
Where imagery is lacking, peripheral sensations are some- 
times present in the field of attention, but after these 
cases are sul^tracted, there still remain a good share of the 
wliole number — about one fifth in my observations — 
in which no sensorial content could be detected. 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUXTARY MOVEMENT 377 

The first reaction of a psychologist to the statement of 
this result is apt to take the form of insisting that there 
clearly must have been present some image of the move- 
ment or of its result, otherwise the movement was not 
voluntary, since it could not have been foreshadowed in 
consciousness. How could a particular movement be de- 
termined upon, unless there was present some image repre- 
senting and identifying the movement? In spite of the 
feeling that there " must be" an image present, it is worth 
while finding out whether there actually is always one 
there. There is not. The only escape from this conclu- 
sion is by assuming careless introspection on the part of 
my subjects ; but most of them were trained in intro- 
spection. In my own case, I am perfectly certain that no 
sensorial image appears in anticipation of most of my 
movements. I have tried again and again to detect it, 
and it is seldom that I can find any. How is a man who 
has almost none but auditory imagery to obtain images 
of most of his movements ? Speech movements, when 
hesitant, writing movements, always, are with me pre- 
ceded by auditory imagery of the words, letters, or sylla- 
bles about to be produced ; the movements of the fingers 
on the piano, if hesitant, are preceded by auditory images 
of the notes to be struck ; drumming with the fingers on 
a table is accompanied by imaged notes, which how- 
ever do not precede the finger movements, but are timed 
to synchronize with them as if the fingers were making 
the sounds. In most other movements, there is no im- 
agery. If I open a penknife I have no preliminary imagery 
of the feeling of opening it or of its appearance with the 
blade open. If I start to walk into the next room, I have 
no preliminary feeling of a rhythmical motion of my legs, 
nor preliminary vision of the next room. I do have in 
some cases what was called in the individual reports above 



378 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AXD PSYCHOLOGY 

a sort of spatial imagery, if it may be called imagery, 
which has no definite sensory character : in planning to 
go to another room or building, or to move an object, I 
think of their position with reference to my body and feel 
that I could look or point toward them. Such being my 
own experience, I am inclined to give entire credence to 
the statements of my subjects, when they report no image 
of the desired result to be present as a preliminary to 
movement. " Of course," they sometimes said, '^ I know 
what I am going to do, but I have no visual, nor auditory, 
nor motor, nor tactile, nor olfactory, nor gustatory image 
of it." This may be " impossible " from a certain psycho- 
logical point of view, but it is certainly a fact. 

There follow a number of instances from the reports of 
the subjects mentioned earlier in the paper, instances in 
which the image either was absent, or presented certain 
peculiarities that need to be considered in forming a con- 
ception of the function of the image in voluntary move- 
ment. It should, perhaps, be definitely stated that no sug- 
gestion was made to the subjects, other than that implied 
in my asking them to describe the condition of mind that 
immediately preceded the voluntary movement, and par- 
ticularly to note the kinaesthetic and other images present. 

Subject 1. The condition preparatory to opening the eyes 
was described as " absolutely blank." 

The subject was required to select, at a preparatory signal, 
which hand or foot he would move in reacting to an immedi- 
ately following sound, and afterward was asked to describe the 
imagery present at the time of decision. In four cases he re- 
ported images of different sorts, in two other cases he reported : 
" I determined to react with the right foot, that was all ; " 
'' blank, automatic." 

Subject 2. The condition preparatory to gripping the dynamo- 
meter with all his force was thus described : on the first and 
second trials, " I do not know what was there ; " after repeated 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 379 

trials, " The only feeling that I was able to pick out was a feel- 
ing of flexion of the fingers and hand, tactile and motor in 
character. There is a sort of feeling of vacancy of the arm, a 
lack of anything that was definite ; an ' all over ' readiness is 
about all I can call it." 

Subject 3. Preparatory to winking the eye : " No image." 

Bending the finger at the first joint only : " I just have the 
idea of bending the finger ; it is hard to tell of what the image 
consists." 

Hitting at a mark on the blackboard with a piece of chalk : 
"It is hard to analyze. One element that stands out is the 
visual image of seeing myself hit it, the picture of the hand as 
it will be when it reaches the mark. The actual appearance of 
the mark is present only in the background of consciousness, 
being taken for granted. Just at the moment when the act is 
set off, the mind seems to be practically blank." 

Subject 4. Opening the mouth : " It 's a pretty hard thing 
to say." After several trials : " It seems to me that I have a 
very vague image of my mouth as it would look, when open, in 
a mirror ; that is when I try to get an image, but I don't know 
that I ever noticed it before." 

Subject 5. Moving either forefinger, at will, to the nose : 
" I was not thinking of the nose, nor of anything much. I had 
a sort of feeling that the hand chosen had to do something, a 
feeling of getting ready in the hand. There was no visual nor 
kinaesthetic image of the movement." 

Subject 6. Hitting at a dot on paper with a pencil : " I am 
more interested in the objective dot than in anything in my- 
self." 

Subject 7. Opening the mouth widely : " On hearing the 
words ' open the mouth,' I had a distinct image of a peculiar 
clogging sensation near the ear that occurs when the mouth is 
open widely. Just before opening the mouth, there is not a 
single distinct thing." 

Wagging the jaw from side to side : " As soon as the words 
were spoken, I had a beautiful visual image, but in preparing 
to do it myself, I did not get anything." 

Gripping the dynamometer : After the first trial, " There was 



3S0 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

nothing that could be detected. I was so much interested in 
getting the strongest possible contraction that I did not notice 
the image ; " after the second trial, " Sensations from the 
scalp ; " after the third trial, " Sensations from the region of 
the diaphragm, representing a preliminary stage in the process ; " 
after further trials, " First of all, I have mixed and vague 
visual images, before actually getting to business. This is some 
seconds before the movement. Then the whole thing disap- 
pears, and there is nothing left that I can discover, except the 
complex of feelings which result from the motor process itself." 

Subject 8. Reacting to sound by a movement of either hand 
or of either foot, the choice being made at a preparatory signal : 
On reacting with the left hand, " I am perfectly certain of this, 
that I thought of the position of the hand as being to the left of 
me, that is, I did when I chose this hand to move, not when I 
moved ; when the sound came, I was so prepared for that par- 
ticular movement that it went off of itself." 

Subject 9. Flexing the foot : " I don't know how it feels 
beforehand. When I think of doing it, the parts seem all of a 
tremble ready to do it." 

Picking up a small object with a pair of forceps : " It is hard 
to notice anything, except that you naturally have the impulse 
to squeeze the thing and to lift it." 

Subject 10. Opening the closed eyes : " I can detect no 
change at all in consciousness until the movement takes place. 
I was thinking neither of the objects that were about to be seen 
nor of the feeling of the eyes. I did think of the objects in 
front during the time that my eyes were closed, but not just at 
the moment of willing to open them." 

Gripping the dynamometer, the subject's first experience with 
this instrument : On the first trial, " A visual image of the hand 
moving, the thumb going over toward the finger ; " on repeti- 
tion, '' I cannot detect anything ; the first change I feel is the 
movement itself." 

Touching with the right forefinger any spot on the surface of 
the body, the spot to be selected by the subject : " I find it a 
little complex. In deliberating which of the knees to touch, I 
had visual imaf]jes of them both, but at the moment of determi- 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 381 

nation, I could not have told from consciousness what I was 
going to do. There was nothing in consciousness that deter- 
mined the selection. I find I can pass the hand from one point 
to another without having any image of the part to be touched ; 
nor am I conscious of sensations coming from the part in ad- 
vance of the movement. Visual images are usually present, but 
do not seem to intensify just before the movement, nor do they 
disappear with the execution of the movement." 

Touching the nose with either forefinger at the subject's 
choice : " If a visual image of either hand comes suddenly to 
mind, I tend to move that hand ; but if I inhibit the movement 
at the moment, the image continues, and no change in it seems 
to occur immediately preceding the movement." 

Subject 11. Opening a pair of scissors: "I can detect no 
visual image of the scissors opening, nor any kinsesthetic image 
of the thumb and finger ; yet I am perfectly conscious of what 
I want to do ; a notion of the whole thing to be accomplished 
seems to be felt in the ends of the scissor blades." 

Moving a small object from one place to another : " When I 
make an effort to do so, I can picture myself moving it, but it 
requires an effort to do this, and the image is not at all like the 
natural feeling of anticipation. There is no visual image of the 
object in the place to which it is to be moved." 

Gripping the dynamometer : '' There is no preliminary feel- 
ing of tension, and no observable kinaesthetic or visual image." 

Subject 12. This subject's observations have been partly out- 
lined above, in the main text. In the experiments with choice, 
his attention was directed to the sensations of the member to be 
moved, when the choice was between members, and to the point 
to be reached, when the choice was between points. In touching 
objects before him while the eyes were shut, the attention was 
directed to the points in space where the objects were situated 
("spatial imagery"). 

Subject 13. Opening the mouth : " I could not detect any 
preliminary imagery." 

Wagging the jaw at a signal: "I had a visual image of the 
movement beforehand, but when the signal came, it seemed as if 
there was nothing in mind except that the movement occurred." 



382 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

Should it be attempted to destroy the force of these 
negative instances by arguing that an image may after 
all have been present in consciousness, but not in the field 
of attention, it is hard, of course, to disprove such an 
assumption, but if true it does not remove the difficulty 
that confronts us. The intention to do a particular act 
may be clearly attended to without any image lying in 
the field of attention ; the image cannot, therefore, be 
the identifying mark of the act towards which attention 
is directed. 

It might also be suggested that verbal imagery supplied 
the place of other forms in persons who lack the latter. 
Verbal imagery does indeed sometimes, perhaps often, 
appear, but in some persons, at least, is very often absent. 
Verbal imagery would suffer from inadequacy, since we 
can make many movements and do many things, which 
we cannot designate unequivocally in words. In the in- 
stances in which verbal imagery was reported by my 
subjects, it was sometimes ludicrously inadequate as a 
distinguishing mark of the movement that was thought 
of. " I am going to move the thing from here to there " 
might apply to a thousand movements; the words can- 
not possibly have been the determinant of the particular 
movement made. 

The same criticism on the score of inadequacy can be 
applied to other than verbal imagery. Earlier in this 
paper it was applied to many instances of kinsesthetic 
imagery ; most of these, in the light of further criticisms, 
seemed likely not to be images but sensations, and should 
therefore be added to the other cases in which no image 
was present. 

This question of the adequacy or inadequacy of the 
image, when one is present, demands careful attention if 
we are seriously looking for a mental cue which shall be 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 383 

the real cause or determinant of the movement. Not that 
it is fondly hoped to discover in the cause any inner neces- 
sity of the effect ; but at least the cause must unequivo- 
cally identify its particular effect. I intend to do a certain 
act ; my intention is particularized ; if whatever imagery 
may be present is less particular than my intention and 
than the act which results, then the image is not the ade- 
quate cue of the act. 

Sensations are indeed always present as contributory 
factors in determining the act. They represent the exist- 
ing situation with reference to which the act is performed, 
and the act is determined by the existing situation as well 
as by the intention. The intention, broadly speaking, 
includes the present situation as its background, but the 
focus of the intention is the thought of the change which 
it is desired to effect in the situation. In particular, the 
kinsesthetic sensations of the present position of the mem- 
ber to be moved are contributing factors in determining 
the movement, though they are not usually in the field 
of attention. Qualified in this way, our criterion of ade- 
quacy will be that the image of an act to be accomplished, 
added to the sensations which represent the existing situ- 
ation, must be definite enough to determine the move- 
ment which is intended. To recur a moment to the case 
of verbal imagery : If with my eyes open I say '^ I will 
move this object from here to there," sensations serve to 
particularize the general terms " this object," '^ here," and 
"there," so that what is intended is adequately represented 
by the verbal imagery plus the sensations. If now I close 
my eyes, and execute again the same act, accompanied 
by the same verbal imagery, I need something more to 
particularize the general terms. If I have no visual, kin- 
aesthetic, or tactile image to add to my verbal imagery, the 
intention remains unparticularized by sensorial contents. 



384 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

Visual imagery must be of a high order of definiteness 

— of a higher order than most persons lay claim to — in 
order to serve as the specifying agent in determining the 
act. No doubt some persons possess visual imagery suffi- 
ciently faithful in details to portray exactly what the act 
is to be, or at least — vrhich is all that adequacy requires 

— to distinguish it from all other acts that can be distin- 
guished in intention and execution. In such persons, and 
in such cases as their visual image attains this degree of de- 
finiteness, it seems capable of functioning as the adequate 
cue of the act ; but in other cases not. And these other 
cases, apparently, form the great majority of voluntary acts. 

The visual image is open to yet further suspicion ; for 
not all of the essential features of an act can be portrayed 
in visual terms. The force to be exerted by the move- 
ment cannot be so portrayed. Adequacy, as above de- 
fined, does not indeed require that all the details of the 
act shall be represented, but only enough to distinguish 
the result attained from all others that mio^ht have been 
intended and successfully achieved. But there is often 
if not always implicit in the result as desired a certain 
degree of ease or difficulty of performance. The intention 
to lift a heavy object differs from that of lifting a light 
one. To represent this, kinsesthetic imagery would be 
required, but is not usually present. 

In aiming to produce a good tone on the violin or in 
singing, a high grade of auditory imagery would be re- 
quired to represent unequivocally the desired result. A 
man may know that he has succeeded in such attempts 
without having been able beforehand to get an adequate 
auditory image of the tone aimed at. To represent un- 
equivocally all the results that a man is able to accom- 
plish at will would require imagery belonging to various 
senses, and each of a high grade of definiteness. Not 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 385 

many persons, it is safe to say, can adequately image all 
the ends which they strive for and attain. 

The instance of speech is here very much in point. 
One who has vivid auditory imagery, in voluntarily pre- 
paring to utter a certain word, is apt to hear the word 
internally with sufficient definiteness to distinguish it from 
all other words. But persons of other types of imagery 
do not testify to such an experience.^ Some of them say 
that they feel the word in their throat, — probably an- 
other instance of actual movement, rather than of genuine 
kinsesthetic imagery,^ — and others that they see either 
the whole word or some part of it. In many such 
cases the image is not definite enough to identify the 
word. A person may know what he is going to say with- 
out having any adequate image of it. Even the person 
of good auditory imagery, though he mentally hears the 
word he is about to say when his intention is definitely 
to speak that word, does not have a stream of auditory 
imagery running along ahead of his spoken words in 
connected discourse. Here it would be right to say of 
the spoken words, as was said before of movements of the 
arms and legs, that it is not they that are voluntary, but 
some result which they serve to bring about, in this case 
the expression of a thought. Can an adequate sensorial 
image be formed of a judgment or of a concept — an 
image that shall unequivocally identify that particular 
thought among all other thoughts that the individual is 
capable of expressing ? A positive answer would certainly 
not be maintained without difficulty. 

1 Compare a study of the imagery of silent reading by W. B. Secor, in 
American Journal of Psychology, 1900, vol. xi, pp. 225-236. 

2 Compare the demonstrations of actual articulation, during silent speech, 
by Hansen and Lehman, Philosophische Studien, 1895, vol. xi, pp. 471-530; 
and by H. S. Curtis, American Journal of Psychology, 1900, vol. xi, pp. 237- 
239; also by Secor, op. cit. 



386 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

Even the tbouglit of a physical object is not commonly 
reducible to sensorial terms. The size of an object, for 
example, is not judged simply by its present appearance, 
but very largely by reference to previous experience of 
objects ; yet no image of the pre^dous experiences is ordi- 
narily present in consciousness during the act of judging 
the size of an object. Brain physiology affords no sup- 
port to the view that all mental contents must be sensorial 
in character. Only a small part of the cortex is sensory 
in function. The great " association areas," though their 
functions are not made out in detail, are certainly not 
sensory or motor. It is quite true that sensorial content 
is more obtrusive and has more " body " than perceptual 
or conceptual content, and also is more easily describable 
to other persons ; yet not all the contents of consciousness 
are sensorial. When I, a poor visuahzer, run over a list 
of names of my former students and try to recall each 
individual, identifying this one and that one, hesitating 
over a name and finally saying, " Yes, that was the man, I 
recall him now," — in all this there is scarcely a trace of 
visual imagery, and though as a means of bringing the 
absent before me and getting a feeling of their nearness 
the experience would be quite unsatisfactory, yet its lack 
of clear imagery does not make it vague in the least ; it 
supplies information which can be utilized in writing to 
the individual, and even in recognizing and naming him 
on sight. All this is very much in line with the insist- 
ence by James in " The Stream of Thought" on the im- 
portance of non-sensorial elements in consciousness — 
feelings of relation, of tendency, and of meaning. James 
treats these non-sensorial states as " transitive," not as 
possible resting points for thought, and here his view is 
capable of extension ; for if a thing is not fully repre- 
sented nor even identified by the image of it, while yet 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 387 

the thought is focused on the thing, the image is not the 
substantive element in the thought. As regards the real 
point and definition of the thought, the image is, in many 
cases at least, a by-product. Appearing in some persons 
and not in others, who all alike, nevertheless, think of 
the thing with equal definiteness and act in the same way 
and with the same particular ization of intention towards 
it, the image cannot be taken as the real object of thought. 

From this point of view, it is not specially mysterious 
that the sensorial image should often be absent from the 
state of mind preparatory to voluntary action. The cue 
of the act is the thought, not the image. The most defi- 
nite feature of the thought is the cause of the definiteness 
of the act. If it be allowed that there is much mental 
content that is not reducible to sensorial imagery, and 
that some of this content usually lies at the focus of at- 
tention, constituting the real point and meaning of the 
thought, no reason remains for supposing that there 
" must be " a sensorial image of the act which shall 
function as the cue of the movement. 

Brief mention should be made of a subject lying be- 
yond the scope of this inquiry which has already been 
experimentally worked out and has yielded a result ex- 
actly parallel to that reached here. The two results for- 
tify each other, and together form a better basis for a 
positive theory than either alone would afford. The 
processes of recognition and of co??2paHso?i. used for- 
merly to be described by a scheme similar to that of the 
mechanism of voluntary movement that was sketched at 
the beginning of this paper. Recognition was supposed 
to result from the emergence of a memory image of some 
past experience of the recognized object. Comparison of 
a past with a present sensation was supposed to result 
from the persistence or recurrence of an image of the 



388 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

past sensation, which could mentally be placed side by- 
side with the present sensation, and their likeness or dif- 
ference read off. Klilpe^ opened a new line of thought 
by insisting that though some recognitions and compari- 
sons might be of this type, which he called " mediate," 
there was another type, the "immediate," in which no 
image of the earlier experience emerged. Here again, 
psychologists were inclined to object that there " must 
be" an image, otherwise there would be no basis for 
recognition or comparison. Experimental observations, 
however, have abundantly shown that both processes often 
occur without making use of memory images.^ Images 
do often appear, but after the recognition more often 
than before it, and when the comparison is hesitating 
and uncertain, rather than when it is prompt and sure. 
Here, as in the case of voluntary movement, imagery 
seems to be a by-product, an epiphenomenon, rather than 
a causal factor in the process.^ 

The discussion so far has led us to two negations : we 
have rejected first the kinsesthetic image, and second any 
image at all, as the adequate determinant of voluntary 
movement. But there is still a third and more radical 
negation to which we are forced by the introspective 
evidence. Not only is the image inadequate, but the very 
thought, the field of attention just prior to the movement, 
is often inadequate as a distinguishing mark of the move- 

1 Grundriss der Psychologies 1893, pp. 177, 212. 

2 Gamble and Calkins, Zeitschrift fur Psychologies etc.y 1903, vol. xxxii, 
pp. 177-199 ; vol. xxxiii, pp. 161-170. Schumann, Ihid. 1898, vol. xvii, 
p. 119 ; 1902, vol. xxx, pp. 241, 321. Whipple, American Journal of Psy- 
chology, 1901, vol. xii, pp. 409-457 ; 1902, vol. xiii, pp. 219-268. Bentley, 
Ihid. 1899, vol. xi. pp. 1^8. 

3 Cf. James, Principles, vol. i, p. 472, " The image, per se, the nucleus, 
is functionally the least important part of the thought." 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 389 

ment. It would not serve to identify the act among all 
the acts that can be intended and executed. The inten- 
tion is not always present, and is seldom fully present, in 
the field of attention at the moment just preceding the 
innervation of the movement. 

If we refer again to our introspective results, we find 
that the state of mind just preceding the movement was 
described in some cases as almost blank. A clear con- 
sciousness of the act to be performed had been present 
just before, but as the act was delayed, the consciousness 
was reduced to a feeling of readiness, until something 
happened to actualize the movement that was already 
determined and prepared. One person thus described the 
consciousness preparatory to hitting at a mark : the 
thought of the mark quickly retreated to the back- 
ground of consciousness, and was thereafter " taken for 
granted ; " next the thought of the hand hitting the 
mark came to the focus of attention, but in its turn re- 
treated, having a rather blank condition of simple readi- 
ness. Another subject reported that in moving the hand 
to any one, at will, of a number of objects, the thought 
of the chosen object was uppermost in mind just preced- 
ing the movement, the hand being taken for granted ; if, 
on the contrary, the object was constant but either hand 
selected at will, attention was directed to the hand, the 
object being taken for granted. Such cases show that 
the whole determination of an act need not take place in 
one act of attention, and that the act may still remain 
determined, though attention to it has waned. In short 
the nervous system may become set or adjusted for a 
certain act, and remain so for a time without the contin- 
uance of clear consciousness of the act ; or the system 
may be so set as partially to determine the act, the com- 
plete determination being effected in a subsequent mo- 



390 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AXD PSYCHOLOGY 

ment. This is probably always the case to a large extent. 
The whole situation, as far as it is known, results in a 
certain adjustment of the nervous system, so that, for 
example, acts that would be performed while we are 
alone are not performed or thought of in public. Each 
sort of situation produces a corresponding set of the ner- 
vous system, and is thus a partial determinant of all the 
acts that are performed within that situation. 

The conception of a set or adjustment, or temporary 
" disposition " of the nervous system is founded not only 
on facts like the preceding, but on more minute and 
exact information regarding nervous action. We know 
that nervous pathways differ in their conductivity, some 
offering more resistance to the passage of nerve currents 
than others, and all being subject to influences which 
alter their resistance from one moment to another, and 
thus alter the direction which shall be taken by the nerve 
currents and the mental and motor result. One of the 
influences which decreases the resistance of a nerve path- 
way is previous activity of that pathway : repeated activ- 
ity gives rise to a permanent lowering of the resistance 
and thus to a habit. Aside from permanent sets of this 
sort, immediately preceding activity of a given pathway 
induces a temporary reduction of the resistance, a tem- 
porary set, which makes it easier to do a thing a second 
time just after it has once been done. There are still 
other ways of producing a temporary set within the ner- 
vous system : on account of the convergence of different 
pathways, a current coming from one source may facili- 
tate the passage, and reinforce the effect, of a current 
coming from quite another part of the system ; or, on 
the contrary, one current may set a pathway against an- 
other, so as to inhibit its effect. 

There are thus good physiological grounds for assert- 



THE CAUSE OF A VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT 391 

ing that activity of any part o£ the nervous system holds 
over for a while and produces a temporary set having a 
definite tendency ; and that the activities of various parts 
may converge upon a single point in the system and pro- 
duce a joint result. A movement is thus in part previ- 
ously determined and may also be the joint product of 
several partial determinants. When a man confronted 
by a novel situation observes this and that feature of it 
in turn, each new perception leaves behind in the nervous 
system a temporary adjustment to the feature observed, 
until the whole situation becomes — not clearly mirrored 
in any one moment of his consciousness — but dynami- 
cally represented by the sum or resultant of these partial 
adjustments. If he then thinks of some change that he 
can make in the situation and decides to make it, the 
definiteness, of his intention is not contained wholly in 
the field of attention at that moment, but depends upon 
the total neural set and so on the total situation. The 
intention to act adds a new partial adjustment to the 
existing sum of adjustments. If the execution of the act 
is suspended, the set of the system persists for a time, 
or, if it dissolves, may be reconstituted without repetition 
of the gradual process by which it was first made, and 
very little fresh consciousness is needed to put the act 
into effect. 

The complete determinant of a voluntary motor act — 
that which specifies exactly what act it shall be — is no- 
thing less than the total set of the nervous system at the 
moment. The set is determined partly by factors of long 
standing, instincts and habits, partly by the sensations of 
the moment, partly by recent perceptions of the situation 
and by other thoughts lately present in consciousness ; 
at the moment, however, these factors, though they con- 
tribute essentially to the set of the system, are for the 



392 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

most part present in consciousness only as a background 
or ^^ fringe" if at all, while the attention is occupied by 
the thought of some particular change to be effected in 
the situation. The thought may be clothed in sensorial 
images, — rags and tatters, or gorgeous raiment, — but 
these are after all only clothes, and a naked thought can 
perfectly well perform its function of starting the motor 
machinery in action and determining the point and object 
of its application. 



xin 

AN EXPEEIMENTAL TEST OF THE CLASSICAL 
THEORY OF VOLITION 

Charles Theodore Burnett 

Psychology has been trying to push forward on a the- 
ory of the nature of voluntary action that is well set forth 
in the following sentences from James : — 

" A supply of ideas of the various movements that are 
possible left in the memory by experiences of their invol- 
untary performance is thus the first prerequisite of the 
voluntary life" (Psychology, vol. ii, p. 488). 

" An anticipatory image, then, of the sensorial con- 
sequences of a movement, plus (on certain occasions) 
the fiat that these consequences shall become actual, is the 
only psychic state which introspection lets us discern as 
the forerunner of our voluntary acts " (p. 501). 

" There can be no doubt whatever that the mental cue 
may be either an image of the resident or of the remote 
kind. . . . The rule, in fact, would seem to be that they 
(resident feelings) tend to lapse more and more from con- 
sciousness, and that the more practiced we become in a 
movement, the more ' remote ' do the ideas become which 
form its mental cue. What we are interested in is what 
sticks in our consciousness. . . . What interest us are 
the ends which the movement is to attain. Such an end is 
generally an outer impression on the eye or ear, or some- 
times on the skin, nose, or palate " (pp. 518-519). 

Thorndike urges on the contrary (Elements of Psycho- 
logy, p. 282), that " really any mental state whatever may 



394 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

be the antecedent of an intentional act." The context 
indicates that " antecedent " is used here in the sense of 
'^ causal antecedent/' so far as this term is applicable in 
psychology. 

A satisfactory way of testing the truth of the classical 
theory as set forth by James appears to lie in a compari- 
son between the anticipatory idea of some movement and 
the actual execution of that movement. If a movement 
could be found that should be under complete voluntary 
control while yet one could form no idea of it, either 
of the resident or remote type, the theory would seem to 
break down. I chose for comparison actual and imagined 
voluntary movements of the back-and-forth type executed 
at maximum rates. A sample of all such movements is 
found in the wagging of a finger. 

The experiments that I go on to report continue a 
general inquiry into the psychophysics of the motor im- 
pulse that I began in a former paper (Psych. Rev. vol. xi, 
p. 370), where I presented the results of my study of certain 
motor illusions arising through the really or apparently ab- 
normal position of certain limbs. 

1. The apparatus and method of the experiments were 
of the simplest. Fixed limits were arranged between 
which the limbs or the moving parts were made to exe- 
cute their arcs of real movement. The rate was measured 
by a metronome. In the first series of experiments, the 
results of which are stated in Table I, the rate of im- 
agined movement was determined first and not sufiicient 
care was taken to make the arcs of imagined movement 
correspond to those of the later real movement. In the 
second series greater care was taken in this respect, and 
the actual movements were executed first, that the standard 
for the imagined movement might be clearly in mind. 

Metronome-rate and movement-rate were re«^arded as 



EXPERIMENTS IX THE FIELD OF VOLITION 



395 



equal to each other when the movement-rate in question 
could be maintained for eight or ten complete back-and- 
forth movements. The angles to which the several arcs 
corresponded were approximately as follows : forefinger, 
23°, hand, 11°, forearm, 5°, whole arm, 5°, leg, 9°, eyes, 
15°. Only the right limbs were used. During the imagi- 
nation of whole-arm and leg movements these members 
were allowed to hang free. The arm movement was made 
with stiff elbow, and that of the leg was made from the 
hip and with stiff knee. Between the different experi- 
ments in a given series with a given limb there was always 
a lapse of at least an hour and a half, nearly always a 
lapse of several hours, and not infrequently one of days. 
The type of imagination employed in the experiments of 
Table I was kinsesthetic. I was both experimenter and 
observer, hence the results must be regarded as tentative. 



TABLE I.i 
(Ten experiments with each, movement of both series.) 







Fmger 


Hand 


Forearm 


Whole Arm 


Leg 




Actual 


Imag- 
ined 


Actual ^-r 


Actual 


S- 


Actual 


S- 


Actual 


Imag- 
ined 


First ( 


Average ' 364.8 


12S.6 


433.6 132.4 435.2 


137.4 350.4 133.2 


196. 


118.2 


Series | 


Av.var. | 16.64 


10.72 


21.12 


12.4 


23.04 


12.32 


24. 


9.44 


21.6 


11.88 


Second 


Average ! 384. 


155.4 


508.8 


166.8 


50O.8 


161.6 


390.4 


155.2 


237.6 


140.4 


Series 


Av. var. 12.8 


16.64 


43.2 


21.76 


18.88 


23.04 


26. 


27.84 


21.12 


20.48 



First Series. 

Av. var. among the different kinds of actual movements = 66.24 

" " " imagined " = 5.24 

Av. of av. var. of all the actual movements rr 21.28 

= 11.35 



Second Series. 

Av. var. among the different kinds of actual movements = 80.18 

" " •' imagiaed " =: 8.86 

Av. of av. var. of all the actual movements =z 24.4 

" " imagined " ^21.95 

1 Rate per minute is indicated in all tables. 



396 STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

2. The following facts appear in Table I : — 

a. The movements in question can be executed much 
more rapidly than they can be imagined. 

b. ^Yith practice they increase in rate in both the real 
and the imaginary forms. 

c. The per cent of this increase is somewhat greater for 
imagined movements in all cases except that of the leg. 

d. The variabihty of rate for any given movement is 
greater for actual movements as a whole than for im- 
agined movements as a whole, very markedly so in the 
first series. 

e. The variation in rate from each other amono- the 

o 

different kinds of movements is in both series ten times 
as great for the actual as for the imagined. (Cf. foot- 
notes to Table I.) 

/. The average of all the rates of imagined move- 
ment is less than the lowest rate of actual movement in 
the corresponding series. (First series, 130 ; second series, 
155.9.) 

g. The following conclusions about underlying causes 
may be drawn from these facts : (1) It appears from e 
that the rate of imagined movement is not determined 
by differences in the limbs. (2) It appears from a that 
the motor cue for the actual movement cannot be the 
imagination of that movement in kinaesthetic terms. 

3. I next raise the question whether \dsual imagination 
is able to furnish the motor cue ; and I present in answer 
Table II. 

4. The f olloAving facts appear : — 

a. The rate of imagined movement shows a very large 
increase, surpassing in two cases (finger and leg ) the cor- 
responding actual movement given in the second series 
of Table I ; but falling well below in the other move- 
ments of the same series. 



EXPERIMENTS IX THE FIELD OF VOLITION 397 



TABLE n. — VISUAL TYPE OF IMAGINATION. 

(Ten experiments with each movement.) 



Average 
Av. var. 


Finger 


Hand 


Forearm 


Whole 
Arm 


Leg 


422.4 
10.24 


448.8 
29.92 


432. 
32. 


342.4 
64. 


248.4 
32.56 



Av. var. among the different kinds of movements r= 66.72 
Av. of av. var. of all the movements =: 33.74 

h. The variability of each visually imagined movement 
is greater in every case than that of the kinsesthetically 
imagined movement, with the single exception of the 
finger ; and it surpasses, for forearm, whole arm, and leg, 
the variability of the corresponding actual movements. 

c. The average variation among the several kinds of 
imagined movements is greatly increased over both series 
of Table I. 

d. The following conclusions may be drawn from these 
facts: (1) It appears from a that the rate of visually im- 
agined movement is not rapid enough to serve in all cases 
as motor cue for the actual movement. (2) It appears 
from h that the complex of causes determining the maxi- 
mum rate of visually imagined movement is much more 
fluctuating than is that determining the maximum rate 
of the kinsesthetic variety. (3) It appears from c that 
visual imagination does not act as evenly among the 
several movements as does kinsesthetic. 

5. Can we, then, find any field wherein the maximum 
rate of imagined back-and-forth movement is great enough 
to equal the maximum rate of actual voluntary movement ? 
So far as my experiments cover this point, their results 
are presented in Table III. 

Some words of explanation are required here. The crit- 
icism of method for the first series of Table I applies to 



398 



STUDIES IX PHILOSOPHY AXD PSYCHOLOGY 



the eve-movemenrs in the first series of this table. The 
choice of fields ^as deterinined in part by the report of 
introspection as to secondary mental processes occurring 
at the time when the primary process of imagining was 
o'oino' on. 

O O 

T-^LE HI. 
'^Ten experimenti wirh eacli nioveiLienT in both series. 'i 







< 


1 


1 


11 
II 




< i -x 


= 




Firsr ■■ 


.^■erace 


136.S 


90. 


366.4 


3S-2.S 


146. 


514.4 47.^2 


95. 


1.34 


Scries ( 


Av. rar. 


4.96 


6. 


19.9-2 


40.CS 


9:2 


21.12 24, S 


9.6 


- 


Second ( 


Average 


14i2.6 


lOi.4 















The amplitude of chest-movement was very small, due 
to the very endeavor to execute the movement at a maxi- 
mum rate. I have no objective measure of it. though 
it was definite enough in feeling to be reproducible in 
imagination with apparently considerable exactness. It 
proved to be very difficult, not to say impossible, to cHs- 
tino'uish between a series of actual breathing-movements 
built up out of the sounds made by the breath, as it was 
being rapidlv exhaled and inhaled, and such a series 
made out of the kinaesthetic and cutaneous sensations 
occurring on the occasion of the physical process. So for 
the actual breathing series I let the composition out of 
auditory elements suffice. Unit sound for the purpose of 
determining the rate was double, i e. composed of the 

1 Since the unit here is the double sound made hv inhalation and exhala- 
tion, the number of single sounds produced and imagined is twice the num- 
ber indicated. 



EXPERIMENTS IN THE FIELD OF VOLITION 399 

two sounds of inhaled and exhaled breath. The actual 
movement was thus of the usual back-and-forth type. In 
imagining the series here, I could and did distinguish be- 
tween a kinsesthetic and an auditory variety. 

The syllables used were tut-tut-tut, and so on, contin- 
ued indefinitely. Of course every time this syllable was 
uttered the end of the tongue made a back-and-forth 
movement comparable to those of the limbs. When the 
movement was actually made, the syllable was not vocal- 
ized, but whispered; and jaw-movements were allowed, as 
these seemed to increase the ease of execution. 

The eye-movements were made through an angle of 
approximately 15°. The fixation lines between which 
the movements were made, were two upright joists in the 
wall opposite the subject. Unit movement was of the 
usual back-and-forth type. In imagining this movement, 
I held my hand pressed lightly over the eyeballs, that I 
might know and exclude cases where actual eye-move- 
ment should occur. The imagination of this movement 
was in kinsesthetic terms. 

The sort of alternating touches imagined were those 
with which I had become familiar in the actual finger- 
movements, viz., the impressions made on the volar and 
dorsal sides of the finger by contact with the fixed limits 
of the movement-arc. Unit touch for determination of 
the rate in this movement was itself double, made up 
of a volar and a dorsal touch imagined in alternation. 

The sound chosen to represent those occurring inde- 
pendently of bodily activities was the sharp rap of a 
pencil on the bare table. Here each sound constituted 
the unit. 

6. The following facts appear in Table III : — 

a. Wherever actual and imagined movements may be 
properly compared because involving units of like com- 



400 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 

plexitjj the maximum rate of the actual surpasses the 
maximum rate of the imagined. 

h. In no case is the rate of the imagined movement 
large enough to equal the highest rate of actual move- 
ment that has heen found in the course of these experi- 
ments. 

c. The maximum rate of the imagined sound of breath- 
ing surpasses those of all the imagined movements studied 
except the first four in Table II, where visual imagina- 
tion was concerned. This comparison seems to be fair, 
since the auditory unit here is double, just as is the unit 
in the other cases. The rate given for the imagined 
auditory syllables must be halved to make it comparable. 

d. Introspection shows that the auditory — and I may 
add here the visual — movements have the character of 
continuous impressions, like the scream of a whistle, 
while the imagination of muscular movements is typically 
that of alternating impressio7is. 

e. With regard to the main problem, we are forced to 
the negative conclusion that so far there is no evidence 
that we have in imagination any adequate motor cue for 
voluntary back-and-forth movements, such as is required 
by the classical theory of volition. 

7. How does the size of the imagined movement-angle 
affect the rate ? I attempted to answer this by comparing 
the rate of an imagined movement whose angle was the 
largest which the member in question was capable of mak- 
ing, with that of the movements of the corresponding 
limbs previously recorded. The results appear in Table IV. 

8. These facts are shown by this Table : — 

a. The amplitude of the arc is an important factor in 
determining the maximum rate of imagined movement. 
This is indicated by the marked decrease in rate of com- 
parison with Table I. 



EXPERIMENTS IN THE FIELD OF VOLITION 401 

h. While the size of the maximum arc in the sev- 
eral kinds of movement is not the same^ yet the causes 
operative in lessening the rate act approximately alike 
throughout the series ; and so it appears that the 
amount of variation in size of arc for the several kinds 
is not here an important factor. 

TABLE IV. — ANGLE OF IMAGINED MOVEMENT A MAXIMUM — KINES- 
THETIC TYPE OF IMAGINATION. 

(Ten experiments with each movement.) 





Finger 


Hand 


Forearm 


Whole 
Arm 


Leg 


Average 
Av. var. 


75.8 
11.4 


65.2 
7.56 


53.2 
9.96 


46.7 
6.44 


52.4 
5.04 



Av. var. among the different kinds of movements = 9.48 
Av. of av. var. of all the movements := 8.08 

c. Since the average variation from each other of the 
several imagined movements is even less in Table I than 
in Table IV, and is, when taken absolutely, of small 
amount, it appears that the several angles of movement 
chosen for the former experiments did not differ impor- 
tantly in size. 

The results of the foregoing experiments seem to indi- 
cate that in the limited field under consideration, that 
of voluntary movements of the back-and-forth type, the 
imagination of neither resident sensations from the limbs 
nor of remote sensations as from the eye, ear, or skin, 
showing how the moving part looks or sounds or feels, 
can furnish an adequate cue for the occurrence of actual 
movements at a maximum rate. The protests of Thorn- 
dike and of others against the classical theory of volition 
seem in so far to be justified. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Absoluteness of Christianity, 231- 
236. 

Absolutism, political, 72; of empiri- 
cism, 227. 

Abstract outlines, 178-183. 

Esthetic, in moral judgment, 112, 
115 f. ; intellectual element in, 167 ff. 

Alexander, S., 110, 115. 

Alternating impressions, 400. 

Ambiguous perception figures, 274, 
295. 

America, population of, 44, 47-51. 

Appreciation, musical, 169, 198 f. 

Approbation, moral, as basis of moral 
judgment, 101 if. ; definition of, 104- 
106, 111, 116, 122; relation to the 
right, 124-132; to obligation, 132- 
134; is acceptance by the will, 134. 

Aristotle, 5, 152. 

Arrest, periods of, in learning, 306 f ., 
309 f. 

Art, in moral evolution, 12, 33. 

Association, as economic force, 77 ff . ; 
of employers, 81 ; of laborers, 81 f . ; 
of consumers, 82; necessary to indi- 
vidualism, 91; as moralizing force, 
93 f.; as a freeing of personality, 
96. 

Association theory of social influence, 
11. 

Attention, peripheral, natural direc- 
tion of, 270 &., 277-281, 292-294; 
in relation to the subconscious, 317; 
field of, may not include cause of 
voluntary movement, 388 f. 

Auditory cues to movement, 371. See 
also Auditory imagery. 

Auditory imagerv, 186 f. ; as cue, 
357 ff., 377, 384 f., 398-401. 

Australasia, 51. 

Automatic, the, in learning, 304- 
307, 311 f.; writing, 322, 327-331, 
346 ff. 

Automatism, 144. 



Awareness, as property of conscious- 
ness, 161, 165. 
Axioms, 208 f. 

Bach, 179. 

Back-and-forth movements, 394-401. 

Bain, A., 11. 

Bair, 365-367. 

Balbi, 43. 

Baldwin, J. M., 12. 

Ball-tossing, psychology of learning, 

303 f. 
Bastian, 354. 

Beauchamp, Sally, case of, 335 f. 
Behm, 43, 56. 
Bentham, J., 8, 108. 
Bentley, 388. 
Berg, 61. 
Berghaus, 43. 
Bergius, 43. 

Berkeley, 139, 145, 147. 
Bertillon, J., 61, 63 
Bevolkerung der Erde, 43, 55, 57. 
Binet, 320 f., 330, 338. 
Birth rate, 59. 
Black, 43. 
Bodio, 43. 
Botero, 61 f. 
Bright spots, influence on perception 

of direction, 247 ff. 
Bryan, W. L., 304. 
Burnett, C. T., 393 f. 

Calkins, 388. 

Categories, 139, 166; pragmatist view 
of, 208-211, 213 f.; Kantian, 211- 
217. 

Causality, 208, 213 f.; psychophysi- 
cal, 351 ff. 

Cause of voluntary movement, 357 ff., 
391 ff. ; not wholly within field of 
attention, 388 ff . ; experimental tests 
of, 394-401. 

Caverno, 340. 



406 



INDEX 



Chamberlayne, 62. 

Character, moral, 5, 7; formation of, 
17, 28-31, 34; object of moral 
judgment, 110, 132; analysis of, 110. 

Christianity, democratic, 71; view of 
the supernatural, 223, 230; abso- 
luteness of, 231. 

Chung, Prince, 67. 

Civilization, progress of, 43, 59; jus- 
tification of European, 59 f. 

" Clelia case," 328. 

Clifford, W., 117. 

Common sense, moral standards of, 
110-112; the right as viewed by, 
124 ff. 

Communicating levels of conscious- 
ness, 321, 331 ff., 337 ff. 

Concept, in music, 172 ff.; individual 
and general, 176; guiding, 177 ff.; 
formation of, in music, 183 f . ; re- 
lation to habit, 189 f . ; popular, 
scientific, and aesthetic, 192-197. 

Conflicting levels of consciousness, 
334-337. 

Consciousness, problem of, 137 ff.; 
idealistic theory of, 139 ff. ; as end- 
term, 140-144, 151; and evolu- 
tion, 151 f., 166; as a relation, 
155 ff.; metaphysics of, 157; in 
relation to "subconsciousness," 
317 ff.; strata of, 318. 

Continuity, descriptive and explana- 
tory contrasted, 347-349. 

Continuous impressions, 400. 

Conversion and the subconscious, 
343. 

Cooley, C, 32. 

Cooperation, as factor in moral evo- 
lution, 17, 34; essential to democ- 
racy, 74; economic value, 77; in 
trade, 82; in agriculture, 87. 

Cremer, 372. 

Crystal vision, 323, 331-333, 347. 

Cue, of movements, 351 ff. ; not the 
kinaisthetic image, 364 ff., 375 f., 
394 ff.; imagery not adequate for, 
382 ff., 394-401. 

Curtis, H. S., 385. 

Curve, of population in China, 07; 
of })rogress in learning a language, 
301. 

Darwin, 151. 

Delabarre, E. 13., 239, 243, 320. 



Democracy, its motive, 71 ; elements, 
72 f. ; its economic efficiency, 75 ff., 
85; leadership in, 83-88; educa- 
tion in, 88 f . ; relation of modern 
culture to, 90f.,93; cosmopolitan- 
ism of, 91 ; as moral force, 94 ; as 
factor in evolution, 96; religious 
significance of, 97-100. 

Derham, 62. 

Descartes, 137, 139. 

Desire, as object of moral judgment, 
108-110; as starting-point for 
moral judgment, 122. 

Dessoir, 344. 

Dewey, John, 168, 203-205, 207-210, 
216, 224, 232 f . 

Dexter, E., 369. 

Dieterici, 43. 

Direction of lines, visual perception 
of, 239 ff.; variability in, 253 ff., 
263 ff., 288 ff. 

Disposition of nervous system, 332, 
339, 390. 

Distinguishable objects, influence on 
perception of direction, 246. 

Division of labor, as moral factor, 
35. 

Dogmatic method, 219-224. 

Dream-consciousness, 323, 342 f., 
345, 347. 

Duty, 5, 12-14, 18 f., 28-31, 132-134. 

Education, diffusion of, 59; defects 
of, from democratic standpoint, 
88 ; waste in, 89. 

Effort, as factor in moral evolution, 
16. 

Egoistic interests, 117. 

Egypt, 53. 

Emigration from Europe, 46 f . 

Emotional factor in morality, 5, 9, 
11-14, 19, 22 f., 31-33, 37-39; in 
the moral judgment, 104 f ., 123, 
132; in music, 200. 

Empiricism, " radical," of James, 138, 
203 f. ; "immediate," of Dewey, 
203 ff.; as method, 219, 224 ff. ; 
criticised, 225 f . ; as theory of space 
perception, 241. 

Europe, expansion of, 41 ff. ; popula- 
tion of, 42 ff. 

Evolution, moral, 3 ff. ; democracy as 
constructive factor in, 96 ; of mind, 
151, 106; its bearing on idealism, 



INDEX 



407 



151-153 ; as category, 166 ; and 
religion, 225 f . 

Examinations, when to be given, 
312. 

Experience, idealistic conception of, 
139; andthemind, 148, 162; prag- 
matist view of, 203 ff.; Kant's the- 
ory of, 211-217. 

Expilly, 62. 

Exploitation, natural direction of, 
270£e., 277-281, 292-294. 

Factory system, 77, 80 f. 

Feeling, in morality and art, see 
Emotional. 

Flaubert, 119. 

Form, as contrasted with content in 
moral character, 5, 18, 32, 34, 107; 
in music, 175, 190 ff., 200 f.; space 
as, 240. 

Fraternity, requires constructive ac- 
tion, 74; as agency, 99. 

Gamble, 388. 

Genius, 323, 337-343, 348. 

Gillen, 14. 

Gladstone, W., 78. 

Gley, 372. 

Good, 5, 16, 22 f . ; relation to desire, 

108 f., 112. 
Great Britain, population of, 62 ; 

cooperation in, 82, 87. 
Grosse, E., 37. 
Grotius, 126. 
Group life, moral importance of, 6, 

19 f ., 22, 33 ff. 
Guiding concepts, in music, 177 ff. 
Gurney, E., 198 f. 

Habit, in moral life, 28,36; in rela- 
tion to musical concepts, 189 f. ; 
lower and higher order, 304 f ., 307, 
3^ Off. 

Haerlemann, 63. 

Hammurabi, code of, 30. 

Hanna, Thomas, the case of, 322, 
345. 

Hansen, 385. 

Harter, 304. 

Hassel, 43. 

Hebrews, moral evolution among, 14, 
22, 29, 31 f., 37, 38; their view of 
the supernatural, 223, 230, 

Hegel, 137, 139, 153. 



Heredity, physical, 7-10; social, 7, 

10-16. 
Hering, H. E., 372. 
Higher-order habits, 304 f ., 307, 311 f . 
Hoffding, H., 234 f . 
Honor, in moral evolution, 22-24. 
Horizontality, perception of, 245 ff . ; 

exploitation of, 272, 274-281, 293 f. 
Hiibner, 57. 
Hudson, 315. 
Humanism, 203 ff. 
Humboldt, Alexander von, 49. 
Hume, 139, 141, 145. 
Huxley, 139, 146, 153. 
Hypnosis, 321 f., 334, 344 f. 

Idealism, as theory of knowledge, 
137, 139-145 ; is artificial, 146 ; 
reasons in a circle, 148 f. ; chal- 
lenged by pragmatism, 148; by 
natural science, 150 ff. ; and by 
evolution, 151-153; its element of 
value, 154 f.; in music, 190-192; 
and space perception, 239. 

Idealization, as moral factor, 5, 18, 
34 f. 

Ideas, as basis of knowledge, 139 ff. ; 
immateriality of, 146 f.; evolu- 
tion's view of, 153. 

Ihering, 26. 

Illumination, influence of, on percep- 
tion of direction, 247, 250, 253- 
257, 264-268, 294. 

Illusions, 206; reversible of perspec- 
tive, 270 ff., 274, 295. 

Image, anticipatory, 273, 351 ff., 
377 f., 393 ff.; visual, 305 ff., 384; 
sensorial as cue, 352 ff.; kinaes- 
thetic, 352 ff., 361 ff., 395 f.; ade- 
quacy or inadequacy of, 362, 382 ff ., 
401 ; auditory, kinsesthetic, tactile, 
and visual as cues, 397-401. 

Imagery, in musical conception, 185- 
188; in production of movement, 
352 ff., 393^01; kinsesthetic, 352- 
376, 395 ff . ; sensorial not essential, 
356, 362 ff., 376 ff.; kinds of, in 
subjects, 358-361; verbal, 382 f.; 
in recognition and comparison, 
387 f . See also. Auditory, Image, 
Kincesthetic, Visual. 

Imitation, 12-15. 

Impulse, primary, 3; modified by so- 
ciety, 15. 



408 



INDEX 



India, 52 f . 

Indians, numbers of, 48-51. 

Individualism, roots of, 5, 33; demo- 
cratic association and, 91, 96. 

Industrial organization, 80 f . ; its rela- 
tion to democracy, 84 f . ; moral, 96. 

Instincts as moral elements, 6, 10. 

Intention, in moral judgment, 29 f., 
108. 

Interaction of mind and body, 144, 
239 ff., 351 ff. 

Jacobi, 105. 

James, W., 7, 203-210, 215 f ., 228, 
236, 3i5, 320. 323, 325, 343, 354 f., 
375, 386, 393 f. 

Janet, P., 320, 325, 335, 344. 

Japan, 54. 

Jastrow, J., 320. 

Java, 51, 53. 

Johnson, Samuel, 116. 

Judgment, moral, 101 ff.; its object, 
105 f., 108 ; inconsistencies in, 
126 f.; of criminals, 129; objectiv- 
ity of, 113, 128 ff.; its function in 
music, 168, 184. 

Juraschek, von, 43. 

Justice, 5,24 fe. 

Kant, 131, 137, 139-141, 147, 151, 
153, 162; compared with prag- 
matism, 203 f., 211-217. 

Keane, A. H., 51, 53 f ., 58. 

Kerseboom, 62. 

Kiaer, A. N., 66. 

Kidd, B., 25. 

Kinsesthetic image as cue, 352 ff. ; 
adequate or inadequate, 362; not 
exclusive or typical cue, 363 ff.; 
compared with kin?esthetic sensa- 
tions, 371 ff. ; experiments with, 395. 

Kinesthetic sensations, 188, 352 ; 
more important than kinesthetic 
images, 371. 

King, 62. 

Kingsley. Mary, 58. 

Kirkpatrick, 368. 

Knowledge, idealistic theory of, 137- 
145; pragniatist theorv' of, 203- 
211; Kantian theorv, 211-217. 

Kiilpe, 363, 388. 

Labor, division of, 35; productivity 
of, 77; organized, 81, 86 f. I 



Language, psychology of learning a, 

297-313. 
Law, as standard, 5, 24; evolution of, 

25; in music, 194-196. 
Learning, psychology of, 297-313. 
Leeuwenhoek, 44. 
Lehman, 385. 
Leibniz, 317. 
L^onie, case of, 335. 
Levasseur, 43. 
Liberty and equality, 72 ff. 
Lines, perception of direction of, 

239 ff. 
Locke, 137, 139 f., 142 f., 148 f., 151. 
Logic, of idealism, 139 ff. ; relation of, 

to meaning, 164; of music and 

aesthetic experience, 168 ff . 
Lotze, 195. 

Lower-order habits, 304 f ., 307, 311 f. 
Lyman, E. W., 219. 

MacDougall, W., 353, 368. 

Mandeville, 11. 

Marginal consciousness, 317, 326, 
349, 392. 

Marillier, 372. 

Marshall, Alfred, 89. 

Martini, 55. 

Mate-Brun, 43. 

Materialism, 147, 153. 

Mathematics and philosophy, 163. 

Maximum rate of imagined move- 
ment, 394-401. 

Meaning, relation of, 159, 162 ; in 
music, 168, 170. 

Melody, 172, 178 f., 185 f. 

Method, dogmatic, 220-224; empiri- 
cal, 219, 224-227; pragmatic, 
227 ff. ; historical, 223, 225 f., 230; 
in considering the subconscious, 
326 f. 

Meyer, M., 186. 

Mind, as central conception in phi- 
losophy, 137, 141; as end-term, 
140-144; and bodv, 143 f., 152, 
239 ff., 351 ff . ; Locke's theory of, 
148. 

Monotony as factor in learning, 
309f.,312f. 

Moral, analysis of, 4 ff. See Appro- 
bation, Judgment, Right. 

Morality, twofold aspect of, 4 f., 
10 f.; evolution of, 3 ff . 

Motive as moral factor, 5, 31-31, 108. 



INDEX 



409 



Motor elements in space perception, 
242 £e. 

Movements, of eyes as factors in 
space perception, 241 &, ; volun- 
tary, how caused, 351 &., 393-401. 

Munk, 354. 

Miinsterberg, H., 354. 

Muscular tensions, apart from move- 
ment, importance in space percep- 
tions, 244, 249, 273, 286-288. 

Mussulman population, 53. 

Music, in relation to moral senti- 
ments, 11 f., 33; intellectual ele- 
ment in, 167-202 ; three aspects of, 
171. 

Myers, 316, 320, 323-325, 338. 

Mysticism, in moral evolution, 37. 

Natural selection in moral progress, 
8-10. 

Neural basis, of the subconscious, 
324 f., 328-331, 335, 339-342, 
344 f . ; of determination of move- 
ments, 370, 389-391. 

Newton, 149. 

New Zealand, population of, 47, 51 ; 
government in, 87. 

Nicolosi, 61. 

Norton, E. L., 167. 

Obligation, see Duty. 
Opposition as factor in evolution, 16. 
Outlines, abstract, in music, 178- 
183. 

Parallelism, 144, 241, 325. 

Parker, E.H., 66 ff. 

Pathology, evidence from, for the sub- 
conscious, 320-322; ambiguity of, 
324. 

Perception, present theory of, 157 f • ; 
visual, of direction, 239 ff. See 
also Direction. 

Peripheral attention, see Attention. 

Peripherally seen objects, influence 
of, on perception of direction, 244, 
247 ff. 

Phenomenalism, 139. 

Philippines, 52 f . 

Philosophy, idealistic movement of, 
137 ff.; and natural science, 150- 
153 ; need of reconstruction in, 
154. 

Physiological basis, of the subcon- 



scious, 324 f., 328-331, 335, 339- 
342; of movement, 370, 389-391. 

Pierce, A. H., 315, 320, 333. 

Pitch, musical, 172 f. 

Plateaus, in rate of learning, 304- 
313. 

Plato, 10, 12, 204. 

Pleasure, increase of, 59. 

Population, of Europe, 42 ff ., 61 ff. ; 
of countries influenced by Europe, 
47 ff.; China, 55 ff., 6QS.; of 
Africa, 57 f . 

Positivism, 145. 

Powell, J. W., 48. 

Pragmatism, 138, 148, 168; and 
Kantianism, 203-217 ; as method 
for theology, 227-236. 

Prince, Morton, 335. 

Progress in learning, curve of, 300 ff. 

Psychical research, 316, 328. 

Psychologist's fallacy in ethics, 113. 

Psychology, important conceptions of, 
for ethics, 3f.; of moral judgment, 
101 ff . ; inadequate for analysis of 
consciousness, 157 f. ; of learning a 
language, 297-313; of the subcon- 
scious, 324 ff. 

Psychophysics of voluntary move- 
ments, 351 ff., 393 ff. 

Purpose, as object of moral judgment, 
106 f., 111. 

Qualitative and quantitative in music, 

172, 185, 192-197. 
Quantitative in music, 172, 175, 185, 

192-197. 

Raub, W. L., 203. 

Realism, 146, 205. 

Reality, idealism and, 189 ff.; prag- 
matist view of, 203 ff., 228 f.; 
Kant's view of, 215. 

Reden, von, 43. 

Relation, consciousness as, 155, 158 
ff , ; of meaning, formula for, 163 f . ; 
intermittent, 164 f . ; in music, 172 ff . 

Religion, in moral evolution, 14, 21f., 
26-28, 38 f.; of democracy, 97-100; 
empiricist view of, 224-226; prag- 
matic criterion for value of, 232- 
236; and the subconscious, 315 f. 

Resident and remote sensations, 352, 
393. 

Responsibility, 5, 28-31. 



410 



INDEX 



Reversible illusions of perspective, 
270ff., 274, 295. 

Rhythm, 173-175, 177 ff. 

Ribot, 188. 

Riccioli, 42, 61 ff. 

Right, as standard, 5, 27 f., 36; mean- 
ing of, 102 f . ; formal and material, 
107, 119; implies universality, 113, 
128 f . ; various definitions of, 117 fiP. ; 
not merely " the approved," 124 ff. ; 
final definition of, 131. 

Rights, imply social relations, 4; as 
assertion of social self, 24 ff . 

Roon, von, 43. 

Ross, J., 66 f . 

Russian language, psychology of 
learning, 297-313. 

Sacharofe, T., 66. 

Schafer, E. A., 370. 

Schiller, F. C. S., 203-210, 215 f. 

Schiller, Fr., 123. 

Schumann, 388. 

Secor, W. B., 385. 

Seeley, J. R., 41. 

Selection, natural, 8-10, 92; social, 
8-10 ; artificial, in democracy, 
92 f . 

Self, conception of, 3f., 17, 19; social, 
3 f ., 20, 25. 

Sensations, remote and resident, 352, 
393; more important as cues than 
images, 371 £f., 383; as particular- 
izing factors, 383. See Auditory, 
KincBsthetic, Visual. 

Sentiments, moral, 5, 11, 13, 22, 28, 
31-33. 

" Set," of the nervous system, 389- 
391. 

Sex relation in moral evolution, 6, 9, 
19, 34f. 

Sharp, F. C, 101. 

Sherrington, 372. 

Sidgwick, H., 114. 

Sidis, B., 320-322, 325, 344. 

Sincerity, 5, 31 f. 

Smith, Adam, 32, 120-122. 

Social, as moral factor, 6, 10 fP., 18 
ff., 34 f.; as economic factor, 77 ff.; 
tendencies in culture, 90 f . ; con- 
sciousness, 97; as factor in measur- 
ing rhythm, 175. 

Socialism, 80. 

Solomons, L., 329. 



Sounds, as affecting space perception, 
268. 

Space, Kantian doctrine of, 143, 147, 
212; pragmatist doctrine, 208; as 
relation, 159, 162-164, 166 ; per- 
ception, 239 ff . 

Spectator, " impartial," 120-122. 

Spencer, B., 14. 

Spencer, H., 11, 21, 25, 139, 151. 

Stein, G., 329. 

Stephen, L., 110. 

Stout, G. F., 103. 

Struyck, 62. 

Subconscious, as factor in learning 
process, 313, 341. 

Subconsciousness, popular views of, 
315 f. ; its three meanings, 317- 
319; evidence for a detached, 320- 
323 ; literature of, 320 ; evidence 
for, examined, 326 ff. ; storehouse 
notion of, 344; recommended usage 
of the term, 349. 

Subjective mind, 315. 

Subliminal consciousness, 316, 318, 
323, 338, 340. 

Supan, 43, 56. 

Supernatural, 222 ; ethical view of, 
223 f. 

Sussmiich, 42-45, 61-65. 

Surroimding objects, influence on per- 
ception of direction, 224, 247 ff . 

Sutherland, 9. 

Swift, E. J., 297. 

Symbolism in music, 190-192. 

Sympathy, 5, 8, 10, 12, 32 f . 

Synthesis, knowledge as, 139, 142, 
147, 216 ; of meanings, 159 f ., 162 f . ; 
types of, 166; in music, 199 f. 

Tactile image, see Image. 

Tempo, 174, 177. 

Tensions, muscular, see Muscular ten- 
sions. 

Theology, relation to science and 
philosophy, 219 ff . 

Thinking, in and about music, 197 f. 

Third dimension, perception of, 
270 ff., 274,295. 

Thorndike, 393, 401. 

Thought, its function in morality, 10, 
21, 28, 37; in music, 107-202; as 
mediate or immediate, 198. 

Time, Kantian doctrine of, 143, 147, 
212 ; pragmatist view, 208 ; rela- 



INDEX 



411 



tion to consciousness, 156 ; as re- 
lation, 159, 162-164, 166 ; in mu- 
sic, 175 f . ; as necessary factor in 
learning, 309-313. 

Trettien, 368. 

Troeltsch, 236. 

Truth, pragmatic criterion of, 203 ff., 
210 f.; dogmatic theory of, 220. 

Tufts, J. H., 3. 

Typewriting, progress in learning, 
303 f., 309. 

United States, population of, 47, 48; 

cooperation in, 87. 
Unity, in music, 182, 198-201. 
Ustariz, 61. 

Value, in morality, 5, 11, 22, 33, 
36; in moral judgments, 104 ff,; 
in musical appreciation, 169 ff . ; 
logical, 170; pragmatist view of, 
232 f. 

Variability, in perception of direc- 
tion, 253 fe., 263 &., 288 ff . ; in rates 
of actual and imagined move- 
ments, 396 f., 401. 

Vauban, 44, 45, 62. 

Verticality, visual perception of, 
243 ff. 

Visual cues to movement, 370, 397- 
401. See also Visual image. 

Visual image, 304 f ., 356 ff., 376, 379, 



381, 386; inadequacy, 384; ex- 
periments with, 397-401. 

Volition, see Voluntary movement. 

Volney, 43. 

Voltaire, 8. 

Voluntary, nature of, 108 f., 111. 

Voluntary control of exploitation, 
292. 

Voluntary movement, cause of, 351 
ff.; complete determinant of, 391; 
classical theory of, tested, 393- 
401. 

Vossius, 42. 

Wagner, 43, 55. 

Wallace, A. R., 127. 

Westcott, Bishop, 98. 

Westermarck, 124. 

Whipple, 186, 388. 

Will, as centre of moral life, 5 f ., 16 f ., 
28, 33 f.; assertiveness of, 88 f.; re- 
relation to approbation, 124. See 
also Voluntary. 

Willcox, W. F., 10, 41. 

Woodbridge, F. J. E., 137. 

Woods, R. A., 71. 

Woodworth, R. S., 351, 366. 

Writing, automatic, 322, 327-331, 
346 ff. 

Wundt, 204, 354. 

Yanagisawa, 54. 



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